By establishing the initial legal status of the person held criminally liable as a "state of innocence", the presumption of innocence exerts a substantial influence on the entire criminal process: it determines the direction and rules of the criminal-procedural evidence during the entire process; it conditions and guarantees the inherence of the rights and freedoms of the accused, making it impossible to restrict them in the absence of sufficient grounds and necessities to do so. In the study, on the basis of the analysis of the provisions on the presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings, the opinion that the purpose of criminal procedural evidence is to obtain authentic knowledge of the guilt of the person in committing the crime, i.e. to rebut the presumption of innocence, is justified. This objective can be achieved only if all the circumstances of the case are fully and objectively investigated. The theoretical and practical importance of the study on the impact of the presumption of innocence on the distribution of the burden of proof in criminal proceedings is determined by the interpretation of the current problems of the criminal process, examined from the position of the presumption of innocence as a principle of the criminal process, focused on strengthening the procedural guarantees of the rights and freedoms of the individual.