Криміналістична дидактика в контексті руху до єдиного європейського криміналістичного простору: погляди студентів Литви та України

ENThe article is devoted to two mainissues: assessment and comparative research of students’ opinions of two universities (Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania and Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Kharkiv, Ukraine) about the need to study criminalistics by lawyers, as well as their awareness of the processes of criminalistic cooperation in Europe. The relevance of this works is to determine the importance of the study of criminalistics as a university discipline for law schools and institutes. Mastering criminalistic knowledge and the ability to use devices, methods and tools of criminalistics is essential in legal activities. The purpose of this article is to establish the role of criminalistic knowledge for implementation of practical activities of lawyers, the formation of criminalistic didactics in European countries on the examples of Lithuania and Ukraine, as well as cooperation in criminalistics and approximation to the unified European criminalistic space. A set of scientific methods was used to achieve this goal. In the structure of these methods an important place is occupied by methods of sociological research – questionnaires and interviews of students of Lithuania and Ukraine and a comparative analysis of the opinions of respondents. The questionnaire became an empirical component of the article, which was developed in Lithuania and agreed with the Ukrainian co-author. The authors of the article in 2020–2021 surveyed almost half a thousand law students (197 respondents from Mykolas Romeris University and 296 respondents from Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University). The study allowed to determine the position of students on the role of criminalistics in their future profession.According to the respondents, the discipline of «Criminalistics» should be provided in the training program for lawyers as a compulsory. Insufficient awareness of students on integration processes in European criminalistics and international criminalistic cooperation was also found. The proposed article is the result of a broader scientific study, which aims not only to study the current situation, trends and prospects in criminalistic didactics of these countries on the eve of a unified European criminalistic space, but also focuses on future professionals, teachers and managers of educational institutions. These individuals must put idea into practice Keywords: criminalistic knowledge, legal sciences, European educational standards, teaching criminalistics, international criminalistic cooperation, unified European criminalistic space. [From the publication]