On the prevention of arbitrary interference of state bodies and officials into the private life of citizens in the course of criminal proceedings

The interference of state bodies and officials into the private life of citizens is inevitable in the course of criminal proceedings. As practice shows, the state, state bodies and officials don’t always guarantee and ensure immunity of the personal life of citizens. The reasons for this are: a chosen approach to the legal regulation when establishing the limits of admissible interference of state bodies and officials into the private life of citizens during criminal proceedings as well as the absence of consistent legal regulation in the realization of the right to privacy. The development of criminal proceedings should be aimed not at the elimination of the consequences of the violation of rights including the right to privacy but at the elaboration of the effective mechanism preventing any illegal, excessive interference of state bodies and officials into the private life of citizens. This mechanism should involve the securing of the requirement on non-interference into the private life of citizens as the principle of criminal proceedings, the mechanism of control (departmental and judicial), liability and the mechanism for protection. It is important to provide a detailed regulation in the criminal procedural legislation for all actions connected with interference into the private life of a person. A voluntary consent of the citizen makes it possible to conduct investigative actions related to the restriction of his personal life according to the decision of the investigator. If interference into the private life of a criminal trial participant is forced, the court’s decision is compulsory. Moreover, the degree of regulation of procedural actions connected with interference into the private life should depend on the fact whether a criminal trial participant was informed about the above procedural action against him. In this case a detailed regulation of investigative actions under the compulsory judicial control and later a possibility to appeal the legality and substantiality of the mentioned action will serve a guarantee for due protection of private life against interference of state bodies. The following factors are significant for the regulation of investigative (procedural) actions connected with interference into the private life of a criminal trial participant: existence of reasons for interference into the private life, duration of such interference, the order of drafting of a final document containing the results of investigative (procedural) actions; the order of applying the data obtained in the result of such interference, the order of work with information obtained by empowered officials but having no relevance to the circumstances of a concrete case.

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