Topical issues of judicial interrogation in the russian criminal trial

The article analyses the order and conditions of conducting trial examinations within the framework of adversarial proceedings. According to the author, trial examination is the main means of formation of judicial facts. Only trial examinations, but not the announcement of their protocols, allow court to establish legally significant facts. The contents of examination comprises the questions and answers of the interrogated person on the questions put by participants of proof, and formation of the arguments of the parties and internal belief of the judge in the existence or lack of the proved facts. A judge recognizes the proved facts through direct perception of the interrogation process, participation in putting questions, disallowing incorrect, irrelevant questions, and builds his conclusions on these facts. Legal organization of judicial examination has to be as close as possible to the conditions, which guarantee freedom of speech, natural development of dialogues, prevention of attempts to ruin normal speech communication. Judicial examination is preceded by training of the interrogated person who will submit evidence in his favor. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has formulated some kind of prohibition against communication of prosecutor with the witnesses of prosecution and the victim, outside of the courtroom before judicial examination. At the same time, the prohibition for lawyers to communicate with their defendants and witnesses would be unreasonable and illegal. Obviously, a lawyer has to explain his witnesses and the client the line of conduct before they start testifying during the trial. Thus, there is every indication that adversarial proceedings are violated. The lawyer has the rights but a public prosecutor does not have them. The importance of preparation for judicial examination of prosecution witnesses is also obvious in view of anticipation of "attack" of the lawyer on the prosecution witnesses in court, attempts to deny his testimony using illegal or unethical methods. Therefore, references of supporters of legalization of prosecution activities in the sphere of witnesses' preparation for judicial examination to the institute of safety of trial participants, which includes the norms of federal legislation, are quite justified. Taking into account the above information, the author suggests making such amendments to legislation, which would legalize and regulate the order of training of witnesses for testifying. The author shares a position of many scientists and practicians who recognize the fundamental value of cross-examination for the establishment of facts during judicial examination. It is noted that in our country the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has accepted a number of decisions, which created prerequisites for such norms to be entrenched in our legislation.

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