A HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE OF DIGITAL EVIDENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

Recent border disputes and military hostilities have been at the centre of human rights violations accords the globe. A significant amount of evidence collected of the recent human rights violations tend to be digital and are stored electronically. This paper examines the rules regulating admissibility and weight of evidence in South Africa with a view to determining its adequacy in regulating electronically stored and generated information from such human rights violations. The article highlights the nature of digital information and the types of the medium with which they are displayed for the purpose of determining if evidence obtained from them can wholly be functionally equivalent to other classifications of evidence. The paper reveals that the current rules regulating electronic evidence in South Africa do not adequately accommodate electronically generated information and it recommends the enactment of an act exclusively regulating electronic evidence to prevent the miscarriage of justice.