Legal Status of the Initiator and the Person Granting Permission to Conduct a Polygraph Test

Abstract

The relevance of the study is conditioned by the need to regulate the legal status of participants in a polygraph examination as subjects of relevant legal relations. The purpose of the study is to improve the theoretical justification and applied component of the legal regulation of a polygraph examination in the security and defence sector of Ukraine, in particular the legal status of its participants. The methodological basis of the study consists of general and special methods of scientific knowledge, namely: hermeneutics, logical, system-structural, dogmatic, Aristotelian, generalisation, etc. It was proved that the peculiarity of a polygraph examination in the activities of the security and defence sector is that it is conducted to solve the problems of primary legal relations. Accordingly, the status of subjects in a polygraph examination is directly related to their legal status as participants in primary legal relations. It was determined that in the area of personnel support, during the examination of candidates for service (work), a polygraph test is appointed by the relevant subject represented by its head based on a regulation that establishes the procedure for checking candidates. It was noted that in the area of psychological support of counterintelligence and intelligence-gathering activities, the decision on the appointment of a polygraph test should be made by an official who has the right to approve the decision on the establishment of the relevant case; as for the initiator of the examination, it can be both the intelligence officer in charge of the case or the head of the operational unit or body. It was established that the appointment of a psychophysiological examination using a polygraph in criminal proceedings can be initiated by: the parties to criminal proceedings (in relation to themselves and other persons), the applicant, a witness (only in relation to themselves) and their representatives and legal representatives (in relation to persons whose interests they represent). Persons who have the right to appoint a psychophysiological examination using a polygraph are the investigator and the investigating judge.