The evidentiary value of confession of guilt by the accused yesterday, today

The attitude to confessions of the accused reflects the morality and the professional solvency of legislators as well as law enforcers. In order to determine the modern condition of these indicators, the author analyzes the period from Compiled Laws of the Russian Empire to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The highest professionalism was reached by law enforcers on the basis of liberal values and standards of the Charter of Criminal Trial that allowed their best representatives to do without confessions of the accused. The Soviet period was marked by essential regress: the confession became the main and decisive proof again, as it was before the Charter of Criminal Trial, and the torture was widely adopted to achieve it. Now, the legislator makes efforts for its elimination, and currently there are offers to reject confession of guilt by the accused as proof. The analysis of this material leads the author to the conclusion that there is no legislative solution of this problem. The solution lies in increasing the level of general and legal culture of law enforcers, in developing the lost attitude of our great pre-revolutionary predecessors to confession of guilt by the accused, in mastering the indirect way of proof.