The internal conviction in the evaluating evidence in the constitutional judicial process

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The internal conviction in the evaluating evidence in the constitutional judicial process

Shaptala N. - Ph.D in Law, Judge of the Constitutional

Court of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine;

Annotatіon

The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of virtually unexplored issues of the formation of the inner conviction of a judge of the body of constitutional jurisdiction as a subject of proof in the domestic constitutional process. The author focuses particular attention on clarifying the general and distinctive features of the formation of the internal conviction of subjects of proof in foreign bodies of constitutional jurisdiction and judicial bodies of general jurisdiction. It is planned: firstly, to determine the philosophical and legal principles of the procedure for assessing evidence in the domestic constitutional court process, which today are not only poorly investigated, but also legislatively unregulated; the second, to investigate the degree of influence on the formation of the internal conviction of the judge of the constitutional court in the process of assessing the evidence of objective and subjective factors; the third, to determine the differences in the procedure for the judge to pronounce the constitutional authority on the assessment of evidence by a collegial judicial body by way of a vote and in a separate opinion on the basis of internal conviction; the fourth, on the basis of the results of the study, identify ways to further research the problem and justify the need for its legislative settlement. For the solution of the tasks the general scientific methods of cognition were used, in particular analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, logical, systemic, as well as specific scientific methods of cognition in the field of law - formal-legal, legal-hermeneutical, comparative-legal, as well as a method of analysis of the practice of judicial constitutional control. The empirical basis of the study consists of the works of domestic and foreign lawyers who studied theoretical issues of judicial evidence and evidence, acts of domestic and foreign law, the practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the work is that this is the first domestic comprehensive study of the process of forming the internal conviction of the subjects of evidence in assessing evidence in a constitutional court proceeding. According to the results of the research, the author substantiates that the philosophical and legal principles of the procedure for assessing vidence in the domestic constitutional court proceeding are still left out of the attention of law science and lawmakers. The practice and theory of the constitutional court process shows that the formation of the internal conviction of the judge of the constitutional court on the assessment of evidence has a significant impact on the objective (circumstances and facts that were established during the consideration of the case), and subjective factors (personal traits of character and consciousness: worldview, professionalism, legal awareness and justice). Being a form and a reflection of objective reality, the internal conviction of one judge is not a criterion for knowing the truth in a constitutional court process, since this criterion is solely the decision of the collegial body. Problems of proving in the constitutional court process require constant attention from the science of the philosophy of law and the urgent legislative regulation.

Keywords: inner conviction; emotion; truth; evaluation of evidence; mental activity; litigation; doubt; fact.

Аннотация

Шаптала Н. К. - кандидат юридичних наук, суддя Конституційного Суду України, м. Київ;

Внутрішнє переконання під час оцінки доказів у конституційному судовому процесі

Метою дослідження є комплексний аналіз недостатньо досліджених питань формування внутрішнього переконання судді органу конституційної юрисдикції як суб'єкта доказування в конституційному судовому процесі. Автор акцентує увагу на з'ясуванні спільних і відмінних особливостей формування внутрішнього переконання суб'єктів доказування в конституційному судовому процесі вітчизняних та іноземних органів конституційної юрисдикції та судових установ загальної юрисдикції. Для досягнення поставленої мети необхідно було виконати такі завдання: по-перше, визначити філософсько-правові засади процедури оцінки доказів у вітчизняному конституційному судовому процесі, які є законодавчо не врегульованими; по-друге, дослідити ступінь впливу на формування внутрішнього переконання судді конституційного суду в процесі оцінки доказів об'єктивних і суб'єктивних факторів; по-третє, з'ясувати відмінності процедури висловлення суддею органу конституційної юрисдикції свого ставлення до оцінки доказів колегіальним судовим органом шляхом голосування та на підставі внутрішнього переконання; по-четверте, окреслити шляхи подальшого наукового дослідження проблеми й обґрунтувати необхідність її законодавчого врегулювання. Для виконання поставлених завдань застосовано загальнонаукові методи пізнання, зокрема: аналіз, синтез, дедукцію, індукцію, логічний, системний, а також специфічні наукові методи пізнання в галузі права - формально-юридичний, юридично-герменевтичний, порівняльно-правовий, а також метод аналізу практики судового конституційного контролю. Емпіричну базу дослідження становлять праці вітчизняних та іноземних правознавців, які вивчали теоретичні питання судового доказування й доказів, акти національного та зарубіжного права, практику Конституційного Суду України. Наукова новизна роботи полягає в тому, що це перше вітчизняне комплексне дослідження процесу формування внутрішнього переконання суб'єктів доказування під час оцінки доказів у конституційному судовому процесі. За результатами дослідження обґрунтовано, що філософсько-правові засади процедури оцінки доказів у вітчизняному конституційному судовому процесі досі лишаються поза увагою юридичної науки та законодавця. Теорія та практика конституційного судового процесу засвідчують, що на формування внутрішнього переконання судді конституційного суду з питань оцінки доказів значний вплив мають об'єктивні (обставини та факти, які були встановлені в процесі розгляду справи) та суб'єктивні (особистісні риси характеру та свідомості: світогляд, професійність, правосвідомість і справедливість) фактори. Внутрішнє переконання одного судді, що за змістом і формою становить відображення об'єктивної дійсності, не є критерієм пізнання істинності в конституційному судовому процесі, оскільки цим критерієм є виключно рішення колегіального органу. Проблеми доказування в конституційному судовому процесі потребують посиленої уваги з боку науки філософії права та нагального законодавчого врегулювання.

Ключові слова: внутрішнє переконання; емоції; істина; оцінка доказів; розумова діяльність; судовий процес; сумнів; факт.

Introduction

In the legal literature, problems related to the functioning of institutions of constitutional judicial control have been studied by many Ukrainian and foreign legal scholars, in particular: O. Bandura, Y. Baalin, V. Boyk, V. Brintsev, Y. Groshev, N.Drozdovich, A. Dubinsky, V. Kamp, N. Klymenko, O. Kony, V. Konovalova, M. Kostytsky, N. Kusakova- Kostytska, V. Malyarenko, O. Myronenko, M. Mihieenkom, M. Pogoretsky, B. Poshva, P.Rabinovich, A. Sevivanovym M. Sirim, I. Sliderov, A. Strizhak, V. Tatsiy, S. Shevchuk, V. Shepitko and many others.

However, despite the significant number of publications and scientific works, some topical issues, in particular, the philosophical and legal definition of the concept and essence of inner conviction when evaluating evidence in the constitutional court process, are still little studied.

The theoretical basis of the study are the works of domestic and foreign scientists in the fields of philosophy and constitutional law, as well as acts of the domestic body of constitutional jurisdiction.

1. The purpose

The goals and objectives of the study are:

- the definition of the philosophical and legal content of the concept of «inner conviction», when evaluating evidence in a constitutional legal process, understanding the psychological foundations of its use;

- the Identifying common principles and differences in the worldview functional specificity of evidence in a constitutional court process and their influence on the formation of decisions and conclusions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (hereinafter - the CCU, Court).

Presentation of the main material The activity of assessing evidence as a separate stage of evidence, which ends with the formation of a final internal conviction of a judge on the admissibility or inadmissibility of certain evidence regarding the facts and circumstances of the case, has long been under the close attention of specialists in the field of the philosophy of law.

As he wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century I. Foinitsky (1996, p. 193), the inner conviction of a judge should be formed as a result of his mental activity and should be:

a) a conclusion from evidence verified in the manner prescribed by law;

b) based on consideration and assessment of all evidence in the case;

c) based on the assessment of evidence in its entirety;

d) based on the assessment of each evidence «by its nature and in the case».

A. Koni (2017, р. 10-11), who noted that «the freedom of internal contention is that the evidence can be taken by a judge as confirmation of the existence of a particular fact (circumstances) only when, in the case of a judge, After considering it, pondering and weighing, the court recognizes its source and content in such a way that it does not give rise to doubts and is worthy of belief in relation to all the evidence together that the comparison, opposition and verification of some evidence by others does not take place in advance Sami's program, but through clever critical work, finding acceptable for human perception of the degree of truth, and one truth, as if» in some cases it was not difficult to subjugate your personal feeling to the consistent conclusion of consciousness.

A. Koni (2017, р. 80-82) singled out five stages of the development of justice in the context of assessing evidence, according to internal conviction, of a court (judge):

- First, the freedom of the judge's inner conviction with a limited range of evidence (the ancient and other ancient worlds);

- the second, the uselessness of inner conviction under the domination of the Horde (the early Middle Ages, early feudalism);

- the third, the bias of inner conviction with the dominance of the dogmas of the Christian church (the heyday of the Middle Ages);

- Fourth, the connectedness of inner conviction in the theory of formal evidence (later Middle Ages, absolutism);

- the fifth - the freedom of inner conviction of modern times.

On this occasion, it should be noted that an eminent legal scholar died in 1927, therefore, he could not fully appreciate another stage, so to speak, of the «development» of such a psychological-legal phenomenon as the assessment of evidence, according to the inner conviction, of a court the influence of the ideology dominating in the state (the Soviet Union, the countries of the socialist camp, China, the USA of the times of McCarthyism, etc.).

In the modern legal literature, the concept of «inner conviction» of a judge is interpreted differently.

Thus, according to the doctor of psychological sciences M. Enikeev (2010, p. 504-505): «the judge's inner conviction is his firm conviction that the circle of facts and circumstances necessary for resolving a case is correctly defined. The fact that they took place should be established and irrefutably proved».

The professor S. Fursa (2006, p. 555) believes that the judge's inner conviction is «not an unconscious impression, a sensation that cannot be controlled, but confidence in the correctness of his conclusions, which form the basis of the court decision».

«The nature of the judge's internal convictions», observes Doctor of Law V. Konovalova (2005, p. 143), «is characterized by a certain state of consciousness of a judge - the assurance of the correctness of the decision (sentence) taken in the case, as well as the willingness of the will to act in accordance with his internal convictions».

Professor of Law at the University of Beaulieu, Pennsylvania (USA) M. Sax (2017, p. 290), - defines the judge's internal conviction as «a difficult marriage between the brain, behavior and the law».

A. Volkov (2015, p. 7) notes in this connection that «the judge's inner conviction in court proceedings:

- France and Belgium - is to “meet the burden of proof” and means the requirement to establish the existence of probabilities or probabilities sufficient to make a court decision;

- Italy and Spain, - this is a “black box” - that is, a free assessment of evidence that the judge considers relevant to the knowledge of “truth” or the establishment of “moral certainty”;

- in Germany, - the decision by a judge to declare evidence “true” or “false”;

- in Ukraine, - a direct assessment of all available evidence on the basis of their comprehensive, complete, objective research (study)».

These all concepts definitely have the right to life, however, in my opinion, the scientific position of M. Mikheyenko (1999, p. 44) is more appropriate. So, according to the scientist, inner conviction in the psychological aspect can be viewed both in dynamics (as the process of its formation) and in statics (as a result). In the course of its formation, a personal opinion is created, doubts and uncertainties are eliminated and overcome.

The judge comes to inner conviction as a state of firm confidence in the correctness of his conclusions, the determination to fix them in the procedural documents, if necessary, to publicly express them, and readiness to defend in relevant instances, to bear responsibility for them. In the epistemological aspect, the inner conviction of a judge is knowledge of both the individual factual circumstances that constitute the subject of proof, and the conclusions of the case, including those concerning legal assessment, qualification of established facts, circumstances, events, etc.

The importance of psychological factors as the basis for forming the judge's internal convictions, and N. Drozdovich (2010, p. 250-251), who argues that «the will component is a factor involved in shaping the judge's internal convictions. At the same time, the individual mental qualities of the judge give emotional color to the judiciary, but they do not take part in shaping the internal convictions of the judge; they exist outside this process and are only "background phenomena" when establishing the actual circumstances of the case and can have a negative external influence, since they form a one-sided view by the way, misunderstanding of complex or unusual objects».

The opinion of the judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, McDowell (2008), is also pleasing, who points out that where evidence is balancing on the verge of probability, there are no clear rules as to when the judge can have an internal conviction that the evidence is incorrect or reliable. The judge examining the case should not consider the proof of isolation, but should consider the whole set of evidence in this case and assess the impact of any doubt on the credibility and reliability of the main issue in the case.

The topic of proof in the jurisdictional process was developed by various scientists, but it dealt mainly with such problems as the relationships between legal proof and fundamental epistemic concepts such as knowledge and justification, in particular, scientific articles should be noted: Michael S. Pardo. The gettier problem and legal proof (2010); Amalia Amaya. Coherence, evidence, and legal proof (2013); Ronald J. Allen. The nature of juridical proof: Probability as a tool in plausible reasoning (2017); Shane Kilcommins. Crime control, the security state and constitutional justice in Ireland: Discounting liberal legalism and deontological principles (2016); Shai Danziger, Jonathan Levav, and Liora Avnaim-Pesso. Extraneous factors in judicial decisions (2011); Chrisje Brants, Stewart Field. Truth-finding, procedural traditions and cultural trust in the Netherlands and England and Wales: When strengths become weaknesses (2016); Nathan J. Brown Julian G. Waller. Constitutional courts and political uncertainty: Constitutional ruptures and the rule of judges (2016). In these and some other publications, various scientific aspects of legal proceedings and jurisprudence were examined to determine the characteristic features of evidence in the jurisprudence, as well as the role of the formalized probability theory in the context of forming the judge's internal convictions.