Social and Legal Studios
ISSN 2617-4162
e-ISSN 2617-4170
Publisher: Lviv State University of Internal Affairs
Abstract
The relevance of this study is conditioned, firstly, by the global trend of digitalisation of court practice which requires adaptation to the new reality, and secondly, by the insufficient development of the theoretical and methodological foundations for the use of such an exclusive source for the development of legal science and practice. The purpose of the study was to formulate, at the conceptual level, the basis for the effective use of court decision databases in criminal proceedings for scientific research, optimisation of practice and the educational process. The cluster of methodological research tools included systemic, comparative, synergistic, risk-oriented approaches, and methods of formal logic. The study summarised the data on the procedure for publishing court decisions in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions of Ukraine and reviewed the European practices of digital platforms or judicial practices. The study found that the Ukrainian platform of digitised documents is analogous to its European counterparts. It is a source of metadata of court decisions, data on criminal offences, pre-trial investigation and court proceedings, evidence, court reasonings, and specific language of legal documents. This allows not only implementing the principle of openness of court proceedings and access to court decisions but also considering these resources in an axiological context that unites a trilogy of components (political-legal, social, and procedural elements). The study also showed the risks, limitations, and problems of using court decision databases, such as inaccurate search results or restricted access to the system in extraordinary cases. The study suggested improving the national platform by adding options. The practical value of this study lies in presenting to a wide audience the possibilities of using digital platforms for judicial practices and formulating proposals for optimising the information and analytical tools of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions
Keywords: criminal proceedings; court; procedural decisions; information and analytical activities; digital documentation
Suggested citation
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