ACHIEVABLE TRUTH: STANDARDS OF PROOF AND THE LIMITS OF JUDICIAL DISCRETION

Uzbek criminal procedure describes adjudication as the establishment of the truth, yet it does not define the degree of proof that entitles a court to declare a fact true. This article examines the concept of “achievable truth” and the relationship between standards of proof and judicial discretion on the basis of a formal-legal analysis of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan, a comparison of the law of the United States, England and Wales, Germany, France and the Russian Federation, international standards, and the debate among Russian legal scholars on objective truth. It argues that achievable truth is a correspondence-oriented finding of fact that a court may assert when lawfully obtained and tested evidence meets the standard of proof laid down by law and the finding itself is openly reasoned. The article shows that the absolute formula of sufficiency of evidence in the Criminal Procedure Code widens unregulated discretion. It proposes a four-element definition of achievable truth, a practical definition of reasonable doubt, a three-tier classification of the limits of discretion with five criteria distinguishing discretion from arbitrariness, and amendments to Articles 23, 95, 467 and 487 of the Criminal Procedure Code.