Keywords
Abstract
The article examines the legal nature of the institute of attesting witnesses (ponyatye) in the criminal-procedural legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and whether it should be preserved or reformed amid technological progress. The author views the institute through the “live witness versus technical fixation” theoretical debate, comparing Russia’s partial 2013 reform and the complete absence of the institute in Germany, France, the USA and Japan with Uzbekistan’s practice. The phenomenon of the “professional witness,” the technical vulnerabilities of video recording, and AI-based evidence-integrity systems are analysed. The author proposes not the wholesale abolition of the institute but its differentiated reform combined with blockchain-based video fixation.