Genesis of national legislation and scientific thought development regarding criminal liability for perjury

Abstract

One of the ways to mislead a court or other authorised body is to provide deliberately false testimony by a witness or victim, for which the legislator provides for criminal liability in Article 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Based on the social danger of this criminal offence, which is an encroachment on the lawful procedure for the administration of justice, in particular, ensuring the rule of law, legality in the procedural activities of courts, law enforcement agencies, and other institutions entrusted with the enforcement of court decisions, the importance of ensuring a high-quality investigation of these criminal offences has been emphasised. The purpose of the study is defined as clarification and generalisation of theoretical concepts of the emergence and historical development of the peculiarities of criminal liability for knowingly false testimony of a witness and a victim, and outlining the areas for improvement of modern scientific knowledge on this issue. The article analyses certain aspects of the development of national legislation on criminal liability for perjury of a witness and a victim. The author summarises the theoretical developments of scholars whose research focused on the issues of criminal liability for committing criminal offences of this type, as well as the procedural features of obtaining witness and victim testimony, and the specifics of their verification and evaluation. Given the above, the article assesses the development of scientific thought in this regard, and outlines the prospects for further research in the context of determining the grounds and specific features of criminal prosecution of persons who have induced or forced a witness and a victim to give false testimony. The author describes the current state of scientific support for the organisational and tactical principles of investigation of criminal offences of this type, as well as the procedural aspects of obtaining testimony, its verification and evaluation.

Keywords

• criminal proceedings
• pre-trial investigation
• testimony
• interrogation
• witness
• victim
• criminalisation
• criminal liability.