Documents

Documents in Constitutional Law

From the Comparative Constitutions Project: The number of documents that make up the constitution. (NOTE: This question is quite problematic. In the US case, the Constitution is a single document with 27 amendments. So the answer is either (1); (28); or (19) if you count all the Bill of Rights as a single document. Plus one of the amendments was repealing another one (prohibition). For our purposes, the US Constitution is one document. An example of a multiple document constitution is Israel. The Israeli Constituion is 6 basic laws and the Declaration of Independence.)

Definition of Document in the Context of Record Keeping

In relation to the term ‘document’ we can see some measure of commonality in usage. The IT usage has ‘document’ defined in a number of ways. This is from the IBM Dictionary of Computing, McGraw Hill, New York 1994 p. 212:

a named, structural unit of text that can be stored, retrieved, and exchanged among systems and users as a separate unit
information and the medium on which it is recorded that generally have permanence and can be read by humans or machines.

The archives and records management definition provided by the International Council on Archives Dictionary of Archival Terminology, KG Saur Munich, 1988 p. 56 is, in relation to document:

a combination of a medium and the information recorded on or in it, which may be used as evidence or for consultation
a single archival, record of manuscript item

There are some obvious similarities between the two but the crucial and significant difference occurs with the phrase in the latter definition, “may be used as evidence or for consultation”

If we revisit the definition of a ‘record’ we see that the concept of evidence is at its heart. And for a ‘document’ to be useful as an evidential record it, therefore, must possess, “content, structure and context and be part of a recordkeeping system.” This is also the essential difference between a recordkeeping system and an information system. A ‘document’ in an information system which is, “used….for consultation” only, has no value as evidence. For example a document management system which is used to create, receive, maintain and provide access to ‘documents’ which have no or insufficient evidential characteristics is an information system not a recordkeeping system.

Production of Documents in Canadian Procedural Law

Find materials in the Canadian legal Encyclopedia that anlyze Production of Documents.

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