The Judicial Inquiry of a Criminal Case: Collecting or Examining Evidence?

Introduction: today, in the system of criminal procedure regulation, there are some contradictions between the provisions of the law defining the general rules, primarily the structure, of working with evidence and the norms establishing the procedure for conducting a judicial inquiry as one of the basic stages of proof. The paper deals both with the consideration of these issues and the search for solutions to the doctrinal and practical problems arising in this regard. The purpose of the paper is to identify criteria for distinguishing collecting evidence and examining evidence as two independent components of criminal procedural evidence. Methods: in preparing the paper, the general scientific research methods were used: the dialectical method of cognition, the method of system analysis, the formal logical methods, etc., as well as the special research methods: the formal legal method, the historical legal method, etc. The results of the study have made it possible to substantiate the independent nature and own role of examining evidence in the general mechanism for establishing circumstances relevant to a criminal case and the argumentation of law enforcement decisions. Conclusions: the judicial inquiry, as one of the phases of criminal procedural proof, is characterized by all the main components of its structure, including collecting and examining evidence. Moreover, these different in purpose and methodologically autonomous stages of working with evidence can be carried out both jointly and separately, depending on the nature and direction of the relevant judicial actions.