Problems and prospects of the differentiation of criminal proceedings

The article deals with the problems and prospects of differentiation of criminal proceedings. The author believes that the modern Russian criminal process is excessively differentiated mainly due to the increased number of forensic control procedures. The author expresses his concern about the excessive desire to simplify the criminal proceedings, which often leads to the oversimplification. On the basis of the study, the authors concludes about the following: differentiation of the criminal proceedings means that the criminal process is differentiated not only by the degree of complexity of the procedural form, but also by another criterion - the focus of the proceedings that is expressed in its subject and objectives. By this criterion all criminal procedures can be divided into: basic (proceedings in criminal cases), additional (proceedings that occur during the specific performance of the sentence (not to be confused with the stage of the sentence execution), and special (proceedings based on the norms of administrative (Section 51 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), civil (civil suits in criminal trials), constitutional (Part 2, Article 29, Article 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and other branches of law (indemnification as rehabilitation). With the criterion of complexity of the procedural form applied, we can divide all basic proceedings (in criminal cases) into: - regular proceedings, the pre-trial activity in which takes the form of the preliminary investigation, and the case is considered and resolved in the trial court case in the ordinary way; - simplified proceedings; - proceedings with more complex procedural forms. Pre-trial proceedings should include: - the protocol of the pre-trial proceedings; - police inquiry (accelerated and simplified in comparison to the preliminary investigation); - the preliminary investigation by investigators of a single investigative body. The differentiation presupposes the differentiation of judges handling criminal cases at the first instance. In general, the recent changes in the Russian Federation Code of Criminal Procedure resulted, as it has been stated above, in the situation when 80 % of criminal cases are not handled by the courts of first instance, but only resolved. There is no judicial investigation for these cases, which means that the fundamental legal principles, including the principle of immediacy, do not operate. Differentiation of the criminal proceedings should be carried out within reasonable limits and should not lead to its oversimplification.

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