CYBERSECURITY OF DIGITAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFRASTRUCTURE IN UKRAINE: A PROCEDURAL SAFEGUARD OF ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE INTEGRITY AND FAIR TRIAL

Abstract

The digitalisation of criminal justice has transformed the procedural environment in which evidence is created, stored, transmitted, examined, and challenged. In proceedings involving electronic evidence, evidentiary reliability increasingly depends not only on formal rules of admissibility and proof, but also on the cybersecurity of the digital infrastructure through which such evidence is handled. This article argues that cybersecurity of digital criminal justice infrastructure in Ukraine is better conceptualised not merely as a technical or organisational function of information protection, but as a procedural safeguard of electronic evidence integrity and fair trial. The article examines the procedural significance of cybersecurity safeguards for ensuring the integrity, authenticity, provenance, traceability, and verifiability of electronic evidence in Ukrainian criminal proceedings. It applies formal-dogmatic, systemic-structural, and limited comparative legal methods and analyses Ukrainian criminal procedure, legislation on electronic documents, electronic identification and trust services, cybersecurity regulation, selected doctrinal sources, European human rights standards, and international cybersecurity guidance. The analysis demonstrates that the integrity, traceability, and verifiability of electronic evidence increasingly depend on cybersecurity measures embedded within digital justice systems. Accordingly, Ukrainian criminal procedure should more clearly integrate cybersecurity safeguards into evidentiary handling, judicial assessment, and defence verification.