Admissibility of Photo of Document?

[Bazman76]

Hi there,

Is a photo of a document admissible in a Scottish court?

Kind regards

Baz

[Pezza54]

Please read the article "Recovery of Documents in Court Procedure - The Unredacted Truth" at www.brodies.com
In Scotland there is no general obligation for a party to disclose documents as there is in England
In Scotland a party must apply to court for approval of the list of documents they wish to be disclosed
If the court approves the list, the full unredacted documents must be sent to the court in a sealed envelope marked "confidential"
It is the court's decision what documents are to be produced or redacted

The answer to your question is I am not sure. If only a photo of a document is available I guess it would be up to the court to decide if it is admissible

[Bazman76]

Please read the article "Recovery of Documents in Court Procedure - The Unredacted Truth" at www.brodies.com
In Scotland there is no general obligation for a party to disclose documents as there is in England
In Scotland a party must apply to court for approval of the list of documents they wish to be disclosed
If the court approves the list, the full unredacted documents must be sent to the court in a sealed envelope marked "confidential"
It is the court's decision what documents are to be produced or redacted

The answer to your question is I am not sure. If only a photo of a document is available I guess it would be up to the court to decide if it is admissible

Thanks for this. The issue here though is that the document was held by myself but has been lost, however I do have a good photograph of it and just wanted to know if that would be accepted by the court's in Scotland?

[Pezza54]

If the other party objects then probably not
In the Court of Session's decision in Mcleod v Prestige Finance, Lord Tyre in his judgement stated that the summary procedure "contains no relaxation of the ordinary rules of evidence"
"Where a party comes to court founding upon a document as the basis of the right which it seeks to vindicate the "best evidence" rule requires production of the original document. There is no relaxation of that rule to be found in procedure for summary applications"