Will a court accept investigator evidence?
Evidence ·
Civil and criminal courts decide this on different grounds. This article treats them separately and shows how to look up court reasoning
Two distinctions first
First, admissibility and weight are different questions. Admissibility is whether the court will look at the material at all. Weight is how much it believes once it has looked. Recordings, photographs and surveillance logs must clear the first gate before the second matters.
Second, whether evidence can be used and whether the person who obtained it will answer for how they obtained it are independent questions. The same material may be admitted while its source still has to account for the method. The question is never simply whether something can be obtained.
Criminal proceedings
Taiwan's Code of Criminal Procedure contains an exclusionary rule, but on its wording it applies to public officials conducting criminal proceedings. Evidence obtained by private persons falls outside it. The Supreme Court's consistent position is that privately obtained evidence is in principle admissible, unless the method compromised the other side's freedom to speak, such as a statement extracted by force or threat.
Recording a conversation you are a party to is exempt from punishment under the Communication Security and Surveillance Act, provided it is not done for an unlawful purpose. In practice, courts generally accept recordings made to protect one's own rights or to document the other side's wrongdoing. Recording conversations between third parties is a different matter.
Civil proceedings
The Code of Civil Procedure has no written exclusionary rule. Judges decide on free evaluation, bounded by logic and experience. The Supreme Court's recent approach is a balancing test: weigh the purpose and method of obtaining the evidence, and the interest it protects, against the interest it invades. Where the result is proportionate, the evidence is admitted.
Published judgments show two clear directions. Admitted: recordings by a party to the conversation, observation in public places, comparison of public records. Excluded: covert recording after entering another person's home, and large-scale interception of other people's conversations to win a property dispute. The dividing line is whether the method reached into the other person's private sphere.
After admissibility comes weight
A recording proving that someone said something does not prove that they did something. Audio needs the original file and a verbatim transcript; video needs to be continuous. What the court sees must be what was originally obtained. How the pieces fit together is a matter for counsel.
Looking up court reasoning
The Judicial Yuan's judgment search is open to anyone. Choose civil or criminal, enter keywords in the full-text field, and read how courts at each level actually reason. When we cite a court's position in a report, we always give the case number so counsel can check it directly.
FAQ
- Can I use a conversation I recorded myself?
- If you were a party to it and did not record it for an unlawful purpose, the statute exempts you from punishment, and both civil and criminal courts generally admit such recordings. Keep the original file and keep it complete. Do not hand over only an edited excerpt.
- Will a court accept photographs taken in public?
- Generally yes. Activity in streets, restaurants and lobbies is not "non-public activity", and the record can be dated and placed. Photographing through a window into a home, or mounting long-term monitoring equipment outside a residence, carries a high risk of exclusion.
- How complete does a recording have to be?
- The original file plus a verbatim transcript. Submit only an edited excerpt and the other side will challenge its integrity, which can cost you weight even if the recording is admitted.