Professor M, Strogovich put forward a controversial argument in the latest issue of the Literaturnaya Gazeta; to quotes "A person's future, honour and freedom, and sometimes his life, may depend on the verdict of a courte. The administration of justice is inextricably linked up with the concept of social justice, Therefore people do not interprete an unjust verdict, a judicial error simply as a mistake by a particular court but as a grave violation of legality, as a drama of the individual and society.. In the period of the cult of the individual, a 'theory' was current among practical workers and theoreticians of law that 'maximun probability" of guilt was sufficient for conviction, Everyone knows the damage this 'theory' did to our society! eee
"The law, which is founded upon the human and democratic principle of the “presumption of innocence!, reads: 'No person may be considered guilty of having committed « crime and subject to criminal punishment except by sentence of a court.! Until the court has had its say, until it has finally decided the case, the defendent is not considered guilty, no matter how grave and convincing the evidence against him...Excessive confidence in a confession, reliance on it as though it were the best proof, leads to very grave errors in judicial practice. A conviction should be based on the sum totel of the objectively verified evidence and cannot depend: solely on whether or not the accused has confessed guilt."
The same issue of the journal carried a reply by the Prosecutor of the Leningrad People's Court,