{"id":2179,"date":"2024-04-28T18:53:16","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T18:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2024-04-28T20:32:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T20:32:52","slug":"ediscovery-in-sa-best-news-yet-for-compulsory-ediscovery-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/28\/ediscovery-in-sa-best-news-yet-for-compulsory-ediscovery-in-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"eDiscovery in SA \u2013Best news yet for compulsory eDiscovery in SA?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"2179\" class=\"elementor elementor-2179\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-136c17b9 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"136c17b9\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-no\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-5e06971c\" data-id=\"5e06971c\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2531b299 elementor-widget elementor-widget-wp-widget-custom_html\" data-id=\"2531b299\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"wp-widget-custom_html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"textwidget custom-html-widget\"><div class=\"qoute-block\">\r\n                                    <p>Way back in 2014, the South Africa Law Reform Commission (SALRC) published a Discussion Paper on the review of the law of evidence and it recommended that consideration should be given to amend the Rules of Court to provide for the discovery and inspection of electronic documents. Now, within the last few weeks, the same SALRC has published a further Discussion Paper, this time on the subject of an Investigation into Legal Fees.  \r\n\r\nIt is a long and interesting document. However, my main interest is a section headed, \u201cInsufficient Use of eDiscovery\u201d and the words, \u201c\u2026Commission concurs with the recommendation that the Rules of Court should be amended to make e-discovery compulsory.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere are a number of references to eDiscovery and the effect on reducing fees and I urge practitioners and legal teams of corporations to read this part of the report. Additionally, I am absolutely delighted (and a little embarrassed!) to see that an article I wrote for De Rebus, on the subject, is referred to in this SALRC Discussion Paper.\r\n\r\nLet us briefly go back in time. I began my campaign five years ago and eventually, after many communications and meetings I was invited to address the Rules Board in March 2017. I had enlisted the sponsorship and support of the, then LSSA, and we had submitted proposed draft amendments to the Rules to incorporate eDiscovery. Subsequently, I drafted and submitted a protocol to be used as a Practice Directive, as to how to operate the process of eDiscovery and to ensure consistency.  Since that time the Rules Board appointed a Task Team to consider, inter alia, eDiscovery and as the Discussion Paper mentions, they are to investigate how other jurisdictions have dealt with it. Indeed, with permission, I recommended they look at New Zealand\u2019s rules and partly used my protocol based on that of NZ.\r\n\r\nNo word has, yet, come back from the Task Team but we can assume they are still investigating.  \r\n\r\nWhat I am excited about right now is that I no longer feel like a lone voice and to have the backing of a body such as SALRC is just fantastic. \r\n\r\nDespite the tremendous difficulties of 2020, I have sensed that the timing for eDiscovery in SA was becoming closer and now, surely, we should see some progress.<\/p>\r\n                                <\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2184,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}