On Acknowledging Evidence Inadmissible in a Criminal Procedure: The Existential Principle

Any legal procedural form implies compliance with evidence, i.e. their admissibility or validity. Requirements for admissibility vary in different procedural systems. Some accept all information that is not prohibited by special exclusion rules (in most Western countries), while others only accept sources and methods explicitly allowed by criminal procedural law (for example, in Russia). However, both systems have certain common criteria for validity, such as the loyalty of evidence (consistency with leading legal principles and human rights) or their probative value (reliability or sufficient degree of probability). Nevertheless, these criteria are not entirely specific and allow for arbitrary interpretation. A precise principle is needed to determine the admissibility of evidence. As such, it is suggested to consider, firstly, the significance of procedural violations, understood as encroachments on the main (constitutional) principles-maxims of fair (adversarial) proceedings – the principles of equality of parties and independence and impartiality of the court (formal criterion), and secondly, their remediable nature (substantive criterion) – as evidence of the absence of real harmful consequences for the two named principles-maxims.