Creation of the Deposition Material in Witness’s Mind and the Interrogation Tactics

“Creation of the Deposition Material in Witness’s Mind and the Interrogation Tactics” is a research project financed by a research grant of  the Ministry of Science and Higher Education ((Nr 0420/B/H03/2007/33).

It was started in October 2007 and shall be carried on for twelve months. The results shall be published by Prof. Ewa Gruza. Hitherto existing studies show that the least-experienced investigators consider witness examination a relatively easy task. Such ideas are due to inexperience and lack of consideration of the errors made, as well as to the conviction that it would be enough to fulfil the code regulations in order to dully conduct an interrogation. The investigators often do not analyse the reasons of the witness’ oblivion as to the circumstances of the deed, whether he or or she deliberately makes mistakes or whether they are due to psychological conditioning. It is crucial to understand the order and rules of the deposition creation in order to be able to recognise the witness’ ability in this respect. The scientific problem has not been extensively studied so far neither from the theoretical nor the practical point of view.