On the Procedural Force of Criminal Intelligence and Surveillance Information in Proving in Corruption- Related Criminal Cases

Against the background of contemporary areas of development of criminal proceedings, special emphasis is laid on the issue of optimization understood as simplification of procedural forms and means. Rather close attention is paid to the matters of digitalization of the criminal procedure, proposals are made to form an electronic criminal case, develop digital forms and means of proving. However, while the scientific community is discussing the areas of modernization of the criminal procedure which is quite justified and requested and deploys up-to-date digital technologies, there still remain unsolved issues of the procedural force of the means that are evaluated by judges as evidence within the framework of the criminal procedure practice or not evaluated as such or have a rather guiding meaning usually for investigators on the stage of collection of evidence in a criminal case. The issue of evaluation of data obtained within the framework of criminal intelligence and surveillance activities is still not resolved definitively.