INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE IN ENSURING SECURITY OF WITNESSES IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

The article examines the problematic aspects of protecting the safety of a witness as a person participating in criminal proceedings. With the help of a comparative legal analysis of the national legislation with the legislation of certain foreign countries, the status of the normative proposal regarding the security of witnesses is highlighted. Potential possibilities of implementation of certain aspects of foreign legislation into legislative acts of the national

legal system have been clarified. It was determined that the legislation of the Republic of Austria, namely Federal Law No. 526, clearly defines the circle of witnesses who can be included in the witness protection program. According to this law, witnesses are recognized as persons who are in danger in connection with the possession of important information about criminal cases of organized crime, crimes against public order, crimes in the field of illegal drug trafficking and some other crimes.

Austrian security measures are similar to European ones: moving the witness to a safe zone, moving to another place of residence (to another city or even to another country); creation of a new "story" of a personʼs life (legend), drawing up new documents; Guardian; change of identity documents; linking new documents with existing databases; tracking client- provided passwords, email addresses and usernames; social adaptation to a new place of residence; psychological assistance to the victim (witness), etc.

It was found that French law allows even complete anonymity of personal testimony in order to maximize the protection of witnesses. This is quite an effective incentive for a person to provide such evidence and allows law enforcement agencies to simplify the witness protection procedure. It was concluded that the concept of witness and victim protection should include provisions on these three elements. However, the concept of security in the legislation and the theory of the criminal process are not the same, and there is currently no generally accepted definition of the concept of "security" in the theory.