CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF ELECTRONICALLY GENERATED EVIDENCE

Abstract

We reside in an era dominated by electronic technologies, wherein every government institution, business, and industry, regardless of size, as well as personal relationships among families and friends, engage in interaction and communication via electronic mediums. Electronically generated evidence and computer forensics represent relatively recent additions to the array of evidentiary methods in our judicial processes. However, there are certain legal requirements that the collected electronic evidence must satisfy for it to be admissible. They include relevance, reliability and authenticity. Most times, computers are considered the repositories of essential digital evidence such that communications sent via E-mail or files on a computer can either make or mar a case. Although, the legal profession appreciation the value of electronic evidence, however, it has also sparked considerable and often controversial arguments most especially among legal professionals with regard to its authenticity. This paper seeks to critically explore the difficulties and potential outcomes linked with the acceptance of electronically generated evidence within the framework of the Nigerian legal system. In adopting the doctrinal method of research it was revealed the provision is not stringent enough to prevent abuses hence proffered recommendations, however, the newly amended Evidence (Amendment) Act, 2023 seems to have resolved the problems associated with it.