Specialist Participation in Investigative and Procedural Actions (Aspects of Criminal Proceedings)

The use of special knowledge in Russian criminal procedure has a long history, but there are still disputes about what special knowledge is and in what forms it can be used in criminal proceedings. Discussions continue regarding the procedural status of a specialist, his rights, duties and responsibilities. The issue of the correlation between the status of a specialist and an expert has not been resolved, there is no unified position on how a specialist is interrogated, and what criteria should be used to evaluate his opinion. All these issues, which are important to ensure the admissibility of the obtained evidence, in the collection of which special knowledge is used, require resolution. The foregoing indicates the need for further research into the problems of the procedural status of a specialist and his participation in criminal proceedings, which determines the relevance of the chosen topic. Purpose: to analyze the problems of specialist participation in investigative and procedural actions. The methodology of the study is based on general scientific (dialectical, systemic) and specific (formal-legal, system-structural, descriptive-analytical) methods. Results: the article establishes that the specialist participation in criminal proceedings is possible in various procedural and non-procedural forms, with the most in-demand specialist participation in the production of investigative actions. The article reveals significant gaps in the procedural regulation of the status of a specialist, in particular, there are no clear norms regulating the procedure for obtaining a specialist opinion and his interrogation. The author proposes to amend the criminal procedural legislation by including independent articles regulating the receipt of a specialist opinion and the procedure for interrogating this person, which will contribute to increasing the effectiveness of the use of special knowledge in criminal pr oceedings.