Autonomy of courts in sentencing

Legality, substantiality and justice of sentences call on the court to solve all the problems of a criminal case independently on the basis of its inner conviction. Meanwhile, the law stipulates some cases of restriction of the courts’ autonomy: it should dismiss the case when the prosecutor drops charges; when the court is to define the limits of the trial it is bound by the charges brought by the investigator before. In such situations the court depends on the decision of both the investigator and prosecutor. Such a dependence which is admissible in adversarial proceedings doesn’t allow the court to be active in ascertaining the truth and to be free while forming its inner conviction. That is why the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation to eliminate the dependence of the court on the legal qualification proposed by investigators in the indictment is right. To ensure independence of judges it is reasonable to eliminate other kinds of dependence of the court on the positions of investigators, interrogating officers and prosecutors.

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