Achieving the Purpose of Criminal Proceedings in the Conditions of Digitalization: Analysis of Russian and Foreign Experience

Abstract

Digitization has certainly become a trend in the last decade, it has been consistently strengthening on a worldwide scale and its potential has been growing unstoppably. Digital technologies, which have become common in different spheres, are being gradually introduced in the work of law enforcement and judiciary bodies. In connection with these processes, there is a necessity to study the impact of digital technologies on the purpose, goals, and tasks of criminal proceedings. The need for such research is all the more evident in light of the problems of comparative law studies as different countries are currently at different stages of digitization, so the experience of more advanced countries is relevant for those with fewer achievements in digitization. In this article, the author analyzes the impact of digitization on the purpose, goals, and tasks of criminal proceedings in Russia, China, the UK and the USA. It was established that there have been no changes in the legislative regulation of their basic clauses. Currently, the legal regulation of the goal-setting of criminal proceedings remains stable in the face of recent digital trends. The main object of the research is to study how the purpose of criminal proceedings could be reached in view of the influence of digital transformations that the society is going through. It is concluded that such influence fluctuates from totally positive to extremely negative, associated with unstudied (insufficiently studied) risks and threats to the rights of a person in the criminal process and, consequently, to the purpose of criminal proceedings. The greatest threats are associated with the so-called end-to-end digital technologies, which include artificial intelligence, neural technologies, big data, blockchain, and others. The necessity of international and national ethical and legal regulation of the development and use of the abovementioned digital technologies is proven. The author analyzes the existing acts of regulating the ethical aspects of using digital technologies with cognitive functions. It is concluded that the documents that have already been adopted are mostly acts of soft law, and that it is necessary to adopt corresponding ethical and legal norms of a universally binding nature.