Let's Keep It Simple

What is an original electronic document?

The Internet is full of websites offering tons of answers even to the most inane questions. Wishing to make this somewhat of a more scholarly entry, we first moused over to the UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) website and looked for UN Resolutions addressing my question (as suggested by my professor). We found the MODEL LAW ON ELECTRONIC COMMERCE adopted by the UNCITRAL and discovered that its section on original documents was adopted by our own Legislative's E-Commerce Act.

Both state that should the law require information to be presented in its original form, such requirement is met by an electronic document if it can be shown that there is proof of the e-document's integrity (meaning the document has remained complete and unaltered except for the addition of endorsements), and that the said e-document is capable of being displayed to the person to whom it is required to be presented.

Two phrases sum up the requirements of the model law and the E-commerce Act for original documents:
1. Proof of integrity
2. Capability of being displayed when required

Simple enough, right?

But let's move on the Rules on Electronic Evidence (REE) promulgated by the Supreme Court in 2001. Rule 4 Section 1 of the REE states:

Section 1. Original of an Electronic Document. – An electronic document shall be regarded as the equivalent of an original document under the Best Evidence Rule if it is a printout or output readable by sight or other means, shown to reflect the data

It seems that only the second half of the definition was incorporated into the Rule. Where did the first part go?

Actually, integrity is also mentioned in the REE, it was just placed in Rule 5 which pertains to authentication of documents. From what we understand, under the REE, an e-document is considered an original if it is readable, but to be accepted in court it must be authentic, and to be authentic it must have integrity.

Complicated, isn’t it?

But did it have to be that way? A closer look at the law and the rules show that basically, they require the same things. The requirements for an original document to exist in the eyes of the law are the same as the requirements for an original document to be accepted in court.

Prior to the E-Commerce act, the definition of original documents did not appear in any other law except the Rules of Court promulgated by the Supreme Court. It’s understandable that they should feel possessive of something that was originally theirs. But if the law provides a definition that already makes sense, it certainly makes more sense to keep it the way it is. Why mess with a good thing when you don’t have to? We're certainly not going to. So when someone asks us (again) what is an original e-document, we're sticking to the simplest answer:

Integrity + Readability = Original Document