| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 法律學系 === 97 === Technology has not only changed our life and the business world, but also changed many aspects of the discovery process - the pretrial facts finding process and an essential step in U.S. civil litigation. More and more information created every day is now in electronic format. As a result, the discovery of electronic material has also evolved to be one of the most important process in U.S. civil litigation. .Compared to the U.S., without a discovery system or the disclosure obligation between the litigation parties, the discussion of electronic evidence in Taiwan has been focused on how to search and obtain electronic evidence for criminal investigation purpose or on the legitimacy and authenticity of electronic evidence. The discussion concerning electronic evidence in Taiwan civil litigation is quite limited and electronic stored information as the potential source of evidence in civil litigation has been overlooked.
Starting from exploring the difference between the discovery of electronic and paper documents in U.S. civil litigation, the thesis studied several cases and the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that governing electronic discovery to understand the issues of electronic discovery, the pros and cons of having electronic materials discoverable, the rationale behind the 2006 amendments to FRCP, and the impacts of this amendments on U.S. civil litigation. After understanding the issues behind the U.S. system, the thesis attempted to get an overview on the legal status and applicable laws of electronic evidence in Taiwan civil procedure, and tried to identify some potential issues in Taiwan procedure, that may be comparable to the U.S. system. These issues ranged from evidence preservation before filing a complaint, the preservation obligation over electronic evidence, the production and submission obligation over electronic evidence, the specification of electronic evidence, the cost and forms of electronic evidence production, the sanctions over evidence spoliation and other violation, etc. Finally, the thesis analyzed the potential issues and shortfalls on the use of electronic evidence under Taiwan’s current civil procedure and tried to make some suggestions for future improvements.
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