The Use of Statistical Information in Proving and in Passing Judicial Acts in Civil and Administrative Proceedings

The article aims to establish the features of statistical information use in proving and in passing judicial acts in civil and administrative proceedings. The theoretical material for the article is works of domestic procedural law scientists; the normative material is procedural legislation and legislation in the field of statistics; the empirical material is the judicial acts of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration courts. In the course of the research, methods of analysis, synthesis, as well as formal legal and hermeneutic methods were applied. The author analyzes in detail the problems of using statistical information in proving in civil and administrative cases. He infers that the use of statistical information as evidence makes it possible to achieve not only the establishment of the truth in the case, but also to ensure the uniformity of judicial practice. The author considers the correlation of statistical information and generally known facts. He states that well-known facts, confirmed by statistical data, are not presumed per se. The author also studies the means of proving, in which statistical information may exist, and infers that in most cases it exists in the form of written evidence. The author makes conclusions about the possibility of using statistical information during forensic examination and when the expert gives answers to the questions of the court; about the features of the assessment of statistical information by courts noting a high degree of generalization and a variability of its content, depending on the method of statistical research; about the range of circumstances that the court must additionally clarify for an effective assessment of statistical information. The author notes that the source of statistical information is not decisive in its assessment, unless otherwise provided by law. The author also concludes that judicial statistics cannot act as evidence in the case. The results of the study show that the law enforcement practice lacks unified approaches to the assessment of statistical information by courts, which suggests the need for clarifications on this issue from the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

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