Constitutional rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen in the system of principles of criminal procedure

A legal judicial reform which started in our country in the earliest days of Perestroika is has not been completed yet. Despite the adoption of the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation (CPC of FR) and a number of laws regulating the activities of courts and law enforcement agencies, the development of the criminal procedural activities is still going on. It should be noted that one of the major problems for reformers was to protect constitutional rights and freedoms of those persons and citizens who are involved in the process of preliminary investigation and adjudication of criminal cases. It is known that criminal procedure is impossible without some interference into the private life of a charged person. Therefore, the drafters of a new criminal procedural legislation paid great attention to the norms which confirm the order of interference into the private life, guarantee the legality and are called to minimize the restriction of the constitutional rights of the parties to a criminal trial. Taking into account the fact that worldwide accepted rights and freedoms of a person were entrenched in the Constitution of the Russian Federation 1993, the drafters of the CPC of RF found it necessary to incorporate most of these rights and freedoms into the text of the Code. Moreover, in order to raise their effectiveness, these norms were granted the status of the principles of criminal procedure. Unfortunately, the above method of legislative technique failed to achieve the expected results. It often happens that the declared principles of criminal procedure cannot protect the rights of the parties to a trial in practice. Therefore, the author of the present article doubts whether it is eligible to refer a number of provisions, enunciating some rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen, to the principles of criminal law. He estimates the practicability of repeating the provisions of the Russian Constitution in the text of the CPC of RF. The article substantiates the conclusion that some provisions of Chapter 2 of the CPC of RF cannot essentially be the principles of criminal procedure. Their presence here cannot guarantee the rights, freedoms and legal interests of those who are involved in the criminal procedural activity. The author proposes to enshrine the principle of "protection of the constitutional rights of the parties to a criminal trial" instead of "copying" the constitutional provisions in the branch legislation. Furthermore, both recognition and observance of certain constitutional rights and freedoms in the course of criminal procedural activities can be stipulated for in the chapters of the CPC of RF which contain the information about the parties to a criminal trial.

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