CONCLUSION OF A SPECIALIST IN INFORMATION SUPPORT OF CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

The article analyzes the use of specialized knowledge in the information support of criminal proceedings and formation of judicial evidence. The process of criminal investiga-tion is viewed as an information and cognitive activity which is carried out by searching for traces of a criminal offense and obtaining information about its circumstances and the per-son who committed it. It is emphasized that the research and search nature of such activities is associated with great difficulties, since the knowledge of the circumstances of criminal offenses is carried out retrospectively and is often accompanied by quite intense opposition of stakeholders with quite diverse interests, which sometimes exclude each other and delib-erately distort the truth. The author supports the opinion of scholars that the specificity of information and cognitive investigation activities is that they are carried out by the method of proving the fact of a crime and the guilt of the person who committed it in the manner prescribed by law. Attention is drawn to the importance of using modern achievements of various branches of scientific knowledge in this activity. The authors examine the process of formation, development and regulatory consolidation of the institute of using special knowledge to obtain information about the circumstances of a criminal offense. The author also analyzes the evolution of the institute of special knowledge, and draws attention to the gradual expansion of the forms of use of special knowledge in criminal proceedings and their statutory consolidation in the relevant articles of the CPC. A comparative analysis of such sources of evidence as a specialist's opinion and an expert's opinion is made. This made it possible to establish the conditions under which a specialist's opinion may correspond to an expert's opinion, which ultimately made it possible to question the need and expediency of introducing a new source of evidence in the current CPC of Ukraine. It is noted that a specialist's conclusion cannot correspond to an expert's conclusion, since other requirements for obtaining these procedural documents which constitute their procedural form have certain differences.