ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS AS EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS: NATURE, STABLISHMENT AND FEATURES OF USE

The article examines the issue of using electronic documents as evidence in criminal proceedings through the digitalization of justice. The legal principles of the creation of electronic documents in Ukraine as a result of digitization of all spheres of public life are analyzed, in particular, its impact on the ability of electronic documents to acquire evidentiary value, to be recognized as evidence in criminal proceedings. The study of electronic documents as evidence becomes especially relevant in connection with the spread of a new type of criminal offenses committed in the digital space. Based on the legal definitions of the concept of an electronic document as a document in which information is recorded in the form of electronic data, including mandatory requisites of the document, as an electronic form of presenting information, as a way of documenting it, which makes it possible to reproduce information in a visual form suitable for human perception, a conclusion was made about the duality of the essence of an electronic document, which, on the one hand, consists of information, and on the other — of a material carrier — electronic communication devices, on which this information is fixed and with the help of which it is reproduced. In the aspect of the topic of scientific research, the relationship of such concepts as «data» («factual data»), «information» and «knowledge» was considered and it was concluded that these terms are synonyms. The distribution of electronic documents in law enforcement activities caused the question of the possibility of their use as an evidence base. Article 99 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine classifies such documents, as well as other media, as evidence. A document is a material object specially created for the purpose of preserving information, which contains information recorded, in particular with the help of written signs, that can be used as evidence of a fact or circumstance established during criminal proceedings. The above shows that the document as evidence combines the form of recording information (material object, information carrier and its features) and its content (information, information that can be used as evidence). The guidelines of international documents, as well as the regulatory principles of some states regarding the introduction of criminal procedural tools for obtaining evidentiary information from electronic noses (legislation of the Baltic countries and France), as well as the views of domestic scientists on these issues, were analyzed. It was concluded that digital information is one of the types of documentary information as such, which is created, stored and transmitted with the help of electronic equipment. At the same time, it does not matter in what form the procedural document is created — paper or electronic, it can perform only one function — to be evidence in criminal proceedings.