I am involved in a really intense legal matter with a government agency. I have two questions relating to summons for document production.
Any advice much appreciated!
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1. Production of documents I don’t expect to exist
I need to get a summons issued. I expect some of the documents whose production I'm seeking to not exist; the probative value here is the non-existence of these docs.
However, the last time I tried to do this, the registrar rejected the application and said that a summons can only be issued for a document that exists.
One idea I had was to seek production for the documents, but when I explain the forensic purpose, I invert my claim with something like so:
In other words, I am essentially phrasing things according to the empirical method: we assume that the null is true i.e. document exists. However, if the document does not exist, then we reject the null, and accept our alternative.
What I wanted to know is if what I'm doing is sound, or if the registrar is totally going to see straight through this and reject it regardless?
Is there a better way to do this?
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2. In response to summons, how serious is it to forge/conceal documents?
This question is a tad strange. There has been a lot of document forgery going on.
For example, on one occasion I accused them of tampering with evidence and said that I needed an audit report between 1 June 2018 - present in order to show they did not do this. I even said "oh yeah, don't go forging the audit reports… have a little self-respect". In reply, their solicitor forged an audit report and sent it to me, presumably in an attempt to convince me that evidence tampering had not occurred. The reason why I know it was forged is because I examined metadata, etc, and acquired further documents to verify this.
However, something most unusual happened when I served a summons for document production about 2 weeks later: I don't think they forged or concealed anything. The reason why I think this is because one of the documents they provided revealed that another audit report I had been given was a forgery.
I've never been involved in a legal matter before. What I'm trying to understand is why it is an agency is quite willing to tamper with affidavit exhibits, and forge audit reports, but seems so terrified of doing the same in relation to a summons?
I mean, suppose you are served a summons to provide documents and forge/conceal those documents, how much more serious is doing so relative to forging any other document?
Any advice much appreciated!
---
1. Production of documents I don’t expect to exist
I need to get a summons issued. I expect some of the documents whose production I'm seeking to not exist; the probative value here is the non-existence of these docs.
However, the last time I tried to do this, the registrar rejected the application and said that a summons can only be issued for a document that exists.
One idea I had was to seek production for the documents, but when I explain the forensic purpose, I invert my claim with something like so:
In other words, I am essentially phrasing things according to the empirical method: we assume that the null is true i.e. document exists. However, if the document does not exist, then we reject the null, and accept our alternative.
What I wanted to know is if what I'm doing is sound, or if the registrar is totally going to see straight through this and reject it regardless?
Is there a better way to do this?
-------
2. In response to summons, how serious is it to forge/conceal documents?
This question is a tad strange. There has been a lot of document forgery going on.
For example, on one occasion I accused them of tampering with evidence and said that I needed an audit report between 1 June 2018 - present in order to show they did not do this. I even said "oh yeah, don't go forging the audit reports… have a little self-respect". In reply, their solicitor forged an audit report and sent it to me, presumably in an attempt to convince me that evidence tampering had not occurred. The reason why I know it was forged is because I examined metadata, etc, and acquired further documents to verify this.
However, something most unusual happened when I served a summons for document production about 2 weeks later: I don't think they forged or concealed anything. The reason why I think this is because one of the documents they provided revealed that another audit report I had been given was a forgery.
I've never been involved in a legal matter before. What I'm trying to understand is why it is an agency is quite willing to tamper with affidavit exhibits, and forge audit reports, but seems so terrified of doing the same in relation to a summons?
I mean, suppose you are served a summons to provide documents and forge/conceal those documents, how much more serious is doing so relative to forging any other document?
