C O M P A R AT I V E S T U D Y INTRODUCTION Undoubtedly, the hardest and most responsible job of a judge in the criminal proceeding is to decide upon the facts. In order to be able to render a verdict on the criminal responsibility of the defendant and, possibly, pronounce a proper sentence, the judge must decide about facts that happened in the past. The facts upon which the court grounds its decision, or in other words, the facts which the court uses to corroborate the answer to the question whether crime was committed, who the perpetrator is and whether criminal sanctions of the substantive criminal law can be applied, have to be accurately and fully proven. Nevertheless, due to the limitations of human knowledge and imperfections of the information, the judge has a difficult task to decide about facts. Often, despite the comprehensive evaluation of the results of the evidentiary proceedings, the judge can remain doubtful about the facts and cannot decide whether a fact has been proven or not. In such circumstances, the theory and practice of criminal procedure have found the solution - the principle of in dubio pro reo and the standard of proving the guilt by the prosecutor beyond reasonable doubt. These two are a reliable guideline for the judge on the tough and responsible path to decide on the facts. They show the judge the way out of any doubt, they help him/her to not enter any sphere out of reach and relieve him/her of the duty of examining the unknown at all cost, or, transforming it into the known forcefully. In this way, the judge is protected from possible errors, arbitrariness, and capriciousness. Both the principle of in dubio pro reo and the standard that the guild shall be proven by the prosecutor beyond reasonable doubt have evolved over the centuries and have been generally accepted in the contemporary criminal procedural law and practice. At the first glance, they do not look debatable at all. Nevertheless, a more in-depth analysis of their meaning and scope raises a number of questions that remain open, or, which have not been fully consented to by neither the theory nor practice. The history of both is as complex and controversial as their definition which continues to confound jurists, lawyers, and academicians, to put it mildly. The elaboration that follows will show many gaps and unknown loopholes about these two, seemingly simple, principle and standard. 13