The free objective evaluation of the evidence in European criminal law

Abstract

The Court must, when it gives reasons for its decision and it reports on the discovered facts, the evidence obtained and set as the basis of its findings, the claims of the parties and particularly of the accused, which must be answered, and the legal considerations for the interpretation and application of the rule of law, further act a free and objective assessment of evidence. This means, among other things, that it must give reasons for giving or not giving a certain faith to certain evidence and in particular to explain why it chose those as the basis of its findings, although there were others which gravitated to the opposite version. In each case this assessment and justification should respect to the rules of logic, the lessons of common experience and the safe diagnoses of science and technique. These are objective criterias for the evaluation of the evidence, which introduce some limitations on the principle of free assessment of evidence, so that it does not lead to arbitrary and unfair decisions.