The relationship of advocate investigation and evidence in criminal proceedings

The article examines the institution of a lawyer’s investigation in criminal proceedings, as well as the activity of a defense attorney in collecting evidence within the framework of criminal proceedings, which should be regulated as fully and qualitatively as possible (as far as possible) in order to implement such principles of criminal proceedings as the presumption of innocence, ensuring the suspect’s right for the defense, competition of the parties, and these principles should apply not only at the stage of the trial, but also at the stage of the pre-trial investigation. Attention is drawn to the fact that currently, in practice, in the absence of legislative regulation of the procedure for the inclusion of information collected by the defense counsel in the materials of criminal proceedings, the defense counsel has to make a reasoned request to officials who are conducting criminal proceedings. It is noted that evidentiary information collected by the defense attorney on his own without involving the materials of the criminal proceedings cannot be used in the process of proving and substantiating the position of the defense in the criminal proceedings, i.e. become evidence in the full sense of the word. In this regard, it is proposed to make changes to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine regarding the procedure for the inclusion of information collected by the defense attorney in the materials of criminal proceedings, including the procedure for providing it by the defense attorney and the procedure for receiving it from the defense attorney by the inquirer, investigator, prosecutor, and court, specifying that no the right, and the duty of persons conducting pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings to attach evidentiary information to the materials of criminal proceedings. It is pointed out the need for regulatory regulation of the specified legal relations in view of the importance of the development of the institution of evidence collection by the subjects of criminal proceedings, including the defense attorney; since his activity in this field is necessary for the practical implementation of the principle of adversarial criminal proceedings, equality of the parties, as well as for objective pre-trial investigation and trial of each specific criminal proceeding.