On the foundations of the Statute of Criminal Procedure of November 20, 1864

The article explains that the Statute of Criminal Procedure of November 20, 1864, was founded on the ideas of the liberal-legal doctrine of mind, particularly the concept of inner conviction. The inner conviction in its liberal-legal understanding is an effective means of legislative consolidation of the current reform of the criminal procedure in Russia. Due to the philosophy of liberalism, the scientific system of knowledge stripped faith-confidence of its spontaneity not only in the religious aspect, but also in purely secular affairs, including those that are directly relevant to the grounds of the liberal-legal concept of criminal procedure. Its direct link with the "God's will" was torn by the scientific system of knowledge. So, the "God's will" was connected with an entity in the criminal procedure via faith-conviction based on experience and the system of scientific knowledge. In the criminal procedure doctrine this faith-conviction was given the name of "inner conviction". In this sense, the inner conviction in the criminal procedure became incarnate manifestation of the soul, as its only potential properties. Therefore, it is no coincidence, that the inner conviction, as an element of the liberal-legal concept of criminal justice, was regarded as the truth in the pre-revolutionary criminal procedure. It was the philosophy of liberalism that the liberal-legal concept of criminal justice gets the theoretical model for the formation of inner conviction in the criminal procedure. In this sense, the inner conviction is a political ideal fixed in the functioning system of criminal procedure legislation.

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