Judicial Evidence Evaluation in Civil Proceedings in Russia and England

Evaluation of evidence by a court is one of the key stages in the process of proving in a civil case, the core of the process of proving. Evidence evaluation directly affects the content of procedural decisions, in particular, final judgements, and, therefore, determines implementation of functions of evidence procedure in civil proceedings and realization of goals and objectives of civil proceedings in general. The paper focuses on a comparative study of judicial evidence evaluation in Russia and England: the concept of evidence evaluation is analyzed; elements of free evaluation of evidence that prevails in the given legal orders are examined; the composition and the content of the criteria for evidence evaluation are analyzed; attention is paid to the examination of standards of proof as a concept of the Anglo-Saxon system; conclusions are drawn regarding the general features and differences in judicial evidence evaluation in comparable jurisdictions; the expediency of introduction of standards of proof in Russian civil process is revealed.