Objective Truth as a Purpose of Judicial Evidence in Civil Proceedings

Abstract

The article is devoted to revealing the peculiarities of objective truth as the purpose of judicial proof, to determine perspective directions of further development of this concept in the doctrine of civil procedural law. It is determined that the current case law is characterized by an assessment of the evidence by the approach or standard of proof «beyond reasonable doubt», in which the circumstance is considered established, if another explanation of the collected evidence is extremely unlikely. It is pointed out that the typical constituents of the subject of proving in the narrow sense it is advisable to determine: 1) the circumstances of the justification of the requirements; 2) circumstances of substantiation of objections; 3) which must be reflected in the court decision. The composition of such circumstances may change during the hearing of the case, and therefore the precise determination of the subject of proof in a particular case is only possible as of the specific course of its consideration. It is asserted about the value by the legislator to outline the range of circumstances that are part of the subject of proof: confirm the stated requirements or objections (or have other significance for the case); combining this with another mandatory feature: to be established when making a court decision. After all, it does not make sense to prove circumstances that will not be reflected in the court decision in connection with the claims or objections. On the other hand, the court decision must reflect all the circumstances that are important for resolving the issue before the court (dispute over the right, procedural issue, etc.). It is stated that true knowledge as the purpose of judicial knowledge is characterized by a combination of the following features: 1) aimed at reflecting the real circumstances of the case; 2) achieved by applying the appropriate, that is provided for procedural law, methods; 3) properly, that is in the manner provided by the procedural law, justified. It is determined that the relation between objective truth and relative (judicial, formal, legal) truth is expressed in the following two theses: 1) the court’s obligation to strive to establish the true circumstances of the case (objective truth), but at the same time proceed from the existing procedural opportunities; 2) the time of existence of procedural formalism as an independent value goes back to the past, including at the level of legislative proposals. Keywords: objective truth, litigation, civil proceedings, court, competition.