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“I must stress to our judges that electronic evidence must not be treated as something that has sprung up from nowhere. This is unfortunately something that we did not learn in law school. Let’s not be shocked at what we are seeing. Let’s give accommodate this new phenomenon within the current legislation framework. That is the harmony that we have to achieve,” he said at the opening ceremony of the capacity building workshop on ‘Cybercrime & Electronic Evidence,’ which was held in Colombo as a two-day session on 4 and 5 September 2013.
The workshop, an event of the 2013 Cyber Security Week, was organised by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka in cooperation with the Council of Europe.
Observing that courts ask for primary evidence as it is the best form of evidence, he noted it is important to present electronic evidence in its original state. “It is necessary to present this (electronic evidence) in its primary form without changes, deletions, additions or any other alterations. The electronic evidence is easier to alter comparing to other data that we ordinarily see. There is no magic to it, but it is imperative to ensure that the original character of evidence is intact,” said Pieris at the event.
The workshop was also attended by Council of Europe Head of Economic Crime Division/Director General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs Alexandra Seger, Permanent Secretary to Ministry of Justice and Law Reforms Suhada Gamlath, Secretary Judicial Services Commission Sisira Ratnayake, ICTA Chairman Prof. P.W. Epasinghe and ICTA Program Director/Legal Advisor Jayantha Fernando.
Commending the courts in developed countries for being innovative in handling electronic evidence, he said Sri Lanka must also aim at doing the same. While those in the field of law and order should look out of the boundaries of the traditional parameters they are trained to see, he emphasised the need to be innovative to devise mechanisms to make such evidences admissible.
“I target the judicial officers to think out of the box. I am not for a moment 
saying to do something illegal. The amount of value that would be attached to the evidence is another question all together. Try and accommodate as much as possible in the material that is based on electronic evidence as in today’s world, this is important in our lives,” noted Pieris.
Touching on cybercrime, Pieris appraised the Budapest Convention and called it a “perfect template” which Sri Lanka can follow to model not only its national law but also its regional cooperation. According to him, the convention provides a new detection of criminality, and gives great power to law enforcement officials to patrol the internet. The convention is also noted to encourage countries to harmonise national legislation, facilitate investigations, and cooperation between law enforcement globally.
“Harmonisation of cybercrime clauses, just like the harmonisation of business laws and commercial law clauses, is certainly a necessary step if we are to achieve success in our objective to eliminate computer crimes,” opined Pieris.
Stating that the local cyber laws are to a great extent compliant with the Budapest Convention, he confidently said: “Our Legislature has been robust to respond to the threat of cybercrime and the need for the admission of electronic evidence. I can assure that our judges will be as much innovative as judges globally in the admissibility of evidence so we can effectively deal with cybercrime.” However, he questioned if the current cybercrime acts are sufficient, if there is a need to change the laws in this regard and if the country is ready to admit electronic evidence as it should.
While such questions need to be taken into consideration, he said there is a need to improve security awareness by providing adequate resources to secure transactions and coordination and collaboration by allowing systematic exchange between the private sector and law enforcement. “We need to broadly criminalise the conduct including juvenile offenders, who are the majority of the players in this case, and focus on all 
violators – big or small. We need to strengthen international initiatives by updating treaties of agreements to recognise the existing threats and the nature of high tech computer crime with the purpose of admitting the offences which are globally committed on a daily basis,” asserted Pieris.
– Pix by Lasantha Kumara
