Features of Criminal Procedural Evidence in the Context of Digitalization

Abstract

One of the important national development goals of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 is the achievement of digital transformation, which objectively led to the expansion of the use of electronic information in criminal procedural evidence, which, however, is accompanied by a number of theoretical, legal and law enforcement problems. In the theory of criminal procedure law, acute discussions continue on the fundamental problems of improving criminal procedure evidence in the context of the further development of modern digital platforms and various types of technologies. The purpose of the study is to develop scientifically sound and practically significant recommendations aimed at ensuring criminal procedural evidence in the context of digitalization. Research objectives: analysis of the impact of ongoing digitalization processes on the system of criminal procedure law, law-making and law enforcement activities related to evidence; identification of promising areas for the transformation of criminal procedure evidence, including the admissibility of obtaining evidence using artificial intelligence technologies. Research methodology: dialectical method of cognition, general scientific methods of abstraction, analysis and synthesis, special legal methods (comparative legal, logical legal, etc.). Conclusion. Promising areas of transformation of criminal procedural evidence are: a) expanding the possibilities of accessing technological integrated platforms that facilitate obtaining the necessary data in the infrastructure of a single information space; b) changing existing ideas about the criminal procedure form, which contradicts modern methods of obtaining evidentiary information; c) the dynamic introduction of electronic document management in criminal proceedings; d) further legal regulation of the use of electronic evidence in proving the guilt (innocence) of a person in committing a criminal act, as well as other circumstances related to a criminal case; e) expanding the range of investigative actions that allow more productively obtaining evidentiary information in electronic format; f) specifying the competence and powers of subjects of criminal law procedural evidence. Conceptually, it is necessary to determine the limits of the use of artificial intelligence in the preparation and adoption of criminal procedural decisions and in proving facts in a criminal case).