AUTHORIZED SUBJECTS OF WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATIONS IN UKRAINE: CRIMINAL PROCEDURAL ASPECT RELATED TO THE ISSUES OF PROVING GUILT IN CRIMINAL CASES
Authors: Drozdovych Nadiia 
Published: January 2023

The article deals with the issue of significance of applying legal categories and concepts in strict accordance with their actual legal content, without adding emotional layers and expanding their importance due to the extraordinary military conditions. In particular, it should be noted that such trend is considered extremely detrimental to the process of pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings regarding war crimes. Namely, it is stated as a fact that the general public in Ukraine is involved in activities connected with identifying, recording and collecting evidence of war crimes. In this way, a false public opinion is formed that every citizen, in an individual way, as well as through a network of organizations created on a state or public basis, is considered a subject of collecting evidence of war crimes in Ukraine related to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation. Instead, it is emphasized that in the area of criminal procedure, the «subjects of investigation» in such criminal proceedings, as in any other proceedings, are only specially authorized subjects that are persons who have the status of a subject responsible for collecting evidence taking into consideration their professional knowledge, official duties and authorities. It is stressed that this issue is of exceptional importance due to the requirements of the procedural format regarding the adequacy of evidence, since the identified, recorded and collected information about war crimes in Ukraine by a private citizen, transferred to volunteer NGOs is not considered evidence, since it is assumed that the evidence is also an appropriate status of data or information that testifies to the quality, reliability and procedural character of the activities performed to obtain them. On the basis of this, attention should be drawn to the fundamental issue of the interdependence of the authorized subjects who collect evidence of war crimes in Ukraine and the adequacy of evidence that impacts the efficiency of pre-trial investigation, the quality of court decisions and the indicator of justice and legality of justice in the country. At the same time, it should be specified that the call for strict compliance with the requirements of the procedural form regarding the subject composition of the process of war crimes evidence collection in Ukraine does not mean diminishing the activities of the private and public community, but it should be noted that this activity has different historical value, significance and purpose not related to criminal proceedings regarding war crimes. It should be summarized that the arbitrary use of legal categories and concepts, unjustified expansion of their content, do not provide for ensuring the quality of pre-trial investigation of war crimes and create a false idea in society about the criminal procedural activities of state bodies, which adversely affects the process of raising the level of legal culture of the citizens of Ukraine.

Key words: war crimes, subjects of investigation, subjects of gathering and fixing evidence, parties to criminal proceedings, admissibility of evidence.