New teaching methods for increasing the quality of training of law students in Criminal procedure

The effectiveness of the work of specialists in the sphere of criminal procedure (judges, investigators, prosecutors and advocates) is in many respects pre-determined by the quality of their professional training. The criminal procedure in Russia has fundamentally changed during the past decade. The adversarial principle has been declared in the new Criminal Procedural Code (CPC) of the Russian Federation (RF) to be the main principle of not only the stage of a trial (part 3, Article 15 of the CPC of the RF) but of the criminal procedure as a whole. This principle didn't exist in Soviet Russia (except the Jury trial). The order of the trial had an accusatorial character and the court was the most active part in the trial. This activity of the court compensated the activities of parties to a trial and made the involvement of the prosecutor and advocate in a trial rather formal. All these led to negative consequences, i.e. to the accusatorial character of the court. The CPC of the RF changed the court procedure radically: parties, not the court became, active; they presented evidence, participated in its examination, and defended their positions in the case. The only function of the court in an adversarial procedure is adjudication. In practice the situation hasn't fundamentally changed; the number of acquittal judgments is relatively small. The advocates, prosecutors and investigators are not ready for the adversarial procedure. The corresponding skills (ability to discuss, conflict resolution, etc.) should be formed in the course of University education. But for the last 50 years this process has undergone little change. The traditional forms of education prevail: it's impossible to form and master the professional skills of a lawyer within the framework of lectures and seminars. In order to train highly specialized lawyers who are ready to take part in the adversarial procedure, minimize the number of possible mistakes, and find solutions to complicated practical tasks, it's necessary to use and develop the existing teaching methods and to develop new inter disciplinary special courses covering criminal procedure, criminalistics, psychology, conflict resolution studies, legal ethics and pedagogy as well as to introduce innovative teaching methods ( role plays, cases, etc.) aimed at the development of definite professional qualities, skills, and competences, which are necessary for future lawyers.

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