The scientific article is devoted to the definition of directions of improvement of the jury trial in civil proceedings of Ukraine. It unveils the historical origins of formation of the jury trial as one of the important democratic institutions, which provides the possibility of direct participation of people in the administration of justice and is a civilized means of protecting civil society from judicial arbitrariness and corruption in the judiciary. Two models of jury trial are described: the Anglo-Saxon and the continental. The existing scientific controversy on the expediency of the functioning of the jury in civil proceedings and the effectiveness of some, including complex, civil cases with the participation of the jury are described. It is argued that the reasons for the inefficiency of the jury trial in Ukraine are the non-transparent system of forming the jury lists, the lack of state funding for the jury trial, public misunderstanding of the benefits of the jury trial, and thus the non-acceptance of the jury by the vast majority of citizens and their evasion of the duties of jurors. It is concluded that it is inexpedient to preserve the jury trial in civil proceedings in its current form, as this will only harm the tasks of civil proceedings. The authors propose the ways to improve the model of the jury trial in civil proceedings in Ukraine, in particular, by building a transparent system for forming a list of jurors as a result of outreach work among the population and decent pay for jurors.

Mechanism of Appeal and Methods of Verification of the Expert Opinion in Criminal Proceedings

The article is devoted to the study mechanisms of appeal and methods of verification of the expert opinion in criminal proceedings. It is proved that the expert opinion, as well as other collected evidence, should be verified for its compliance with the requirements of the legislation and consistency with the case materials, and if violations are detected during its preparation, such an opinion should be subject to appeal. It is indicated that the methods of verifying the expert opinion are defined by articles 332 and 356 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. However, the peculiarity of carrying out this verification of the expert opinion is that such verification is possible only at the stage of judicial proceedings, while the current Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine does not provide for a mechanism for verifying the expert opinion at the stage of pre-trial investigation. Attention is drawn to the fact that despite the absence of a legally defined mechanism for appealing an expert opinion in accordance with the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, a party to criminal proceedings is not deprived of the right to appeal against such an opinion in a different order, namely by submitting to the Central Expert Qualification Commission of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine an application for initiating disciplinary proceedings against an expert who violated the current legislation during the relevant expert examination. The grounds for submitting this application for initiation of disciplinary proceedings are: non-compliance of the expert’s specialty with the type of expert examination conducted by it; non-compliance of the content of questions put to the expert’s decision with the requirements of scientific and methodological recommendations; application by an expert of improper methodology of forensic examination; conducting expert research to clarify issues of law. It is argued that if, as a result of a review of the disciplinary responsibility of a forensic expert, it is found that he violates the norms of current law, then such an expert will be held disciplinarily liable, and the expert’s expert opinion drawn up by such an expert will be considered inadmissible evidence.