A Comparative Legal Analysis of the Regulation of Rules for Evaluating Evidence in the Criminal Procedure Legislation of the CIS Countries

The article discusses the question of whether the legislative regulation of the rules for evaluating evidence reflected in the Russian criminal procedure law is sufficiently defined. For this purpose, a comparative legal analysis of the relevant norms of the criminal procedure laws of the CIS countries is conducted. It is noted that the requirements of relevance, admissibility, reliability and sufficiency of evidence are reflected in each code of the CIS countries. However, in the criminal procedure legislation of most CIS countries, in contrast to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, these requirements for evidence have a more specific normative expression, consisting in the presence of separate independent rules that disclose their content. It is concluded that the Russian criminal procedure law "loses" in this respect since a clear and unambiguous disclosure of the content of the requirements imposed on evidence would contribute to the same unambiguous perception of them and a clear distinction between both law enforcement and researchers who address issues of evidentiary law. Examples of legislative definitions of evidence features contained in the codes of some CIS countries that the Russian legislator could borrow are given. The legislative consolidation of the principle of free evaluation of evidence by inner conviction in the criminal procedure codes of the CIS countries is analyzed, which allowed to critically assess the wording of the relevant rule contained in the RF Code of Criminal Procedure. According to the author, when designing Article 17 of the RF Code of Criminal Procedure, the Russian legislator discredited - crudely and unfairly - the principle of a comprehensive, complete and objective consideration of the circumstances of the case. In addition, there is an obvious inaccuracy of the wording of Part 1 of Article 17 of the RF Code of Criminal Procedure, based on which evidence evaluation is based on evidence, i.e. on itself. It is difficult to recognize this situation as correct since it is obvious that, to be evaluated, evidence must be examined. On the basis of the comparative analysis, a general conclusion has been made about the presence of some shortcomings in the regulation of evidence evaluation in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The shortcomings include the lack of definitions revealing the content of the terms used in Part 1 of Article 88 and the need of changing the wording of Part 1 of Article 17 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.