Forensic Activity as a Component of the Fight Against Obstruction of Justice

Abstract

Forensic science and criminalistics play a pivotal role in upholding justice by helping to establish objective truth in criminal proceedings. Simultaneously, current realities show that criminal activity is becoming increasingly complex, emphasizing active resistance of the subject of offense to investigation. Resistance to investigations encompasses a wide range of unlawful acts, from the destruction of evidence to tampering with witnesses and investigators, and has become a systemic phenomenon requiring in-depth scientific understanding and the development of effective methods to neutralize it. The issue’s significance is rooted in the rapid growth of crime, its transnational nature, and improvement in the methods used to conceal crime. This makes it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to investigate and solve crimes.

Under such circumstances, criminalistics, as a science that studies patterns of crime mechanisms and how to solve them, should adapt to new challenges. Resistance to investigation is gradually evolving into forms necessitating not only practical but also theoretical approaches to overcoming it. For example, the use of corruption mechanisms, tampering with evidence, or creation of artificial obstacles to the investigation call for recognizing the concept of resistance to crime investigation as an independent object of forensic research. At the same time, terminological inconsistencies and the lack of a unified concept on this issue hinder knowledge systematization in this area.