Establishment of the truth in the course of trial

For avalid adjudication in a case, the court is to establish the objective truth based on the examination of available evidence. According to theadversarial ideology of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, it is the parties responsibility - defence and prosecution -to present evidence in court. However, the position of the court determined by the Criminal Procedure Code is not complete and, therefore,results in some difficulties when resolving a situation. If one of the parties (more often - prosecution) does not present all the evidence,the court cannot make up for the missing one for sentencing as all the means necessary for it are not provided by law. Havinganalysed all opinions given in legal literature we suggest the following way out of the problem situation mentioned above. It is hardlypossible to tend to establish a classical complete model of an adversarial procedure under the present conditions in Russia. A court cannotact as an arbitrator only. It should, as a subject being solely responsible for the content of the sentence, influence the formation of theevidential basis, but should not be fully dependant on the parties to the trial. It is necessary for the court to increase its activity in makingup for evidence but not to lose its impartiality. The latter can be achieved by keeping away from the interests of the parties (Article 15 ofthe Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation). That is why it is inadmissible for the court to gather evidence itself acting sideby side with parties and by this fact be involved in their interests. The activity of the court should not be aimed at gathering on its ownbut at making the parties find the missing ones. It is possible to achieve it by granting the right to return a case for additional investigationto the court. This right of the court should not coincide with its duty to gather evidence on its own (as it was under the CriminalProcedure Code of the RSFSR in 1960). And if we assume the possibility of gathering evidence by the court itself this can be done withthe only purpose - to check the evidence presented by the parties.

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