COGNITIVE APPROACH TO DOCTRINAL UNDERSTANDING THE EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS: WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT?

Abstract

The article examines one of the most common doctrinal approaches to understanding the criminal procedural evidence. This approach consists in identifying evidence with the cognitive activity of officials of preliminary investigation bodies, prosecutors, judges, and other participants in pre-trial or judicial proceedings, that is, with the cognition of circumstances to be established. The author takes into account the dependence of the essence of evidence on objective laws and patterns of psycho-physiological interaction of people with the surrounding reality. The author considers the predominant mediation of cognition, which is characteristic of criminal proceedings. The conclusion is formulated that this approach is not complete for use in doctrine, lawmaking and law enforcement practice. It is asserted that it is inadmissible to understand the evidence only as a set of cognitive techniques. In this regard, attention is drawn to the unacceptability of recognizing the cognitive approach as universal, comprehensive, covering all components of the evidence process without exception. At the same time, the priority of another, so-called integrative approach is discussed. This approach assumes a comprehensive nature, that is, the inclusion in the content of criminal procedural evidencef of both cognitive (cognitive-verifying) techniques and various argumentative-logical operations.