Digital Evidence in Saudi Law: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This research comes as part and prelude to a master's thesis in private law at King Abdulaziz University entitled Digital Documents as Evidence in Saudi Law A comparative study, by researcher Sultan Aljadani and under the supervision of Associate Professor of Civil Law, Dr. Faisal Al-Assaf. Electronic transactions have become an integral part of our daily transactions, and as a result, the Saudi legislator was keen to legislate digital means within the provisions of the new proof Law. Because of the novelty of the law, and because of the importance of digital evidence in proof, research has dealt with the answer to a problem: The extent of the adequacy of legal provisions regulating digital evidence? And emanating from it many questions that do not deviate in their content from this problem. To answer the research question, the researcher followed the comparative descriptive analytical approach, by describing and analyzing the texts related to digital evidence in the Saudi Proof Law and related laws , and comparing them with the Jordanian law. The researcher reached a number of results, the most important of which is that the Saudi legislator has enacted the procedural provisions related to digital evidence within the texts of the evidence Law, and has referred many of the substantive provisions related to digital evidence to the Electronic Transactions Law and other relevant laws. Also, the Electronic Transactions Law - due to its lack of novelty - mixed between some digital evidence, and left some other digital evidence unregulated. Therefore, and in light of the previous results, we recommend that the Saudi legislator completely re-legislate digital evidence in the Saudi Evidence Law, or re-enact the provisions related to digital evidence contained in the Electronic Transactions Law to comply with the new Evidence Law.