Admissibility of evidence in the International Criminal Court

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the admissibility of evidence in the International Criminal Court, in particular, it reveals the content of the concept of "admissibility of evidence" and identifies its features under the Rome Statute and the practice of the ICC, and also reveals the impact of establishing a violation of national criminal procedural norms during the collection of evidence on the recognition of evidence as inadmissible in the ICC.

The methodological basis of the study is dialectical, formal-legal, comparative-legal and systemic-structural methods, which allowed for a comprehensive study of the norms of the Rome Statute and the practice of the International Criminal Court regarding the admissibility of evidence.

It is concluded that when determining the admissibility of evidence in accordance with the ICC, it considers whether the evidence was collected in violation of the statutory system of the Court or internationally recognized human rights. If such a violation is established, it should then be considered whether this violation "calls into question the reliability of the evidence" or whether the admission of evidence "would contradict the integrity of the proceedings and cause serious harm to it." It is emphasized that Article 69(7) of the Rome Statute is applied by the ICC in conjunction with other provisions of the Statute. Certain provisions of the Statute on admissibility apply directly to national authorities acting at the request of the Court, in particular Articles 55(2) and 59 of the Statute.

Attention is focused that the ICC is not bound by the decisions of national courts on matters of evidence. Therefore, the mere fact that a national court has ruled on the illegality of investigative measures cannot be considered binding on the Court. This follows from Article 69(8) of the ICC Statute, which stipulates that “in deciding the question of the relevance or admissibility of evidence collected by a State, the Court shall not rule on the application of the national law of a State.”