The Specific Character of the “Unclean Hands” Doctrine and the Balance of Probabilities (Preponderance of Documents) Standard in the Russian and Foreign Legal Systems

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the necessity of making more precise some points
referred to the problem range of fairness of the judicial proceedings, in particular, to
the “unclean hands” doctrine, as well as the balance of probabilities (preponderance of
documents) standard. With regard to this, the paper is aimed at finding out the essence
of these legal maxims that are widely used in the international and foreign legal
practice but have failed to get widespread in the Russian law so far. The main method
of the research is the technical legal one that allows finding out the legal specific
character of the phenomena under consideration as applied to various legal systems.
In order to obtain the most valid scientific results, in preparing the paper the general
scientific methods (the dialectical one, the systemic one, analysis, synthesis, analogy,
specialization, and generalization) as well as the special legal ones (the technical legal
and the comparative legal one) were also used. The paper presents legal regulation of
the “unclean hands” doctrine of law and the balance of probabilities (preponderance
of documents) standard in the international law and in legislation of foreign countries
and explores various scientific approaches to defining them. The material is not only of
theoretical interest but it has also the practical value for improving the Russian
procedural law.