Criminal trial in Russia: law and policy

As a result of socio-political changes in our state at the end of 80 - the beginning of the 90th of last century objectively there was a need of implementation of judicial reform. The Supreme Council of RSFSR approved on October 24, 1991 the corresponding concept, which defined all subsequent changes. In the Concept of judicial reform under the influence of political views, the main directions of criminal procedure and judicial policy were proclaimed. The following ideas were most brightly expressed: expansions of the competitive beginnings in criminal legal proceedings; restrictions of supervising powers of prosecutor's office and expansion of legal proceedings on protection of the rights; appeals of actions of executive bodies; establishment of the only pre-judicial mode of proceedings on criminal; establishment of special courts. The establishment of an independent judicial system, independent of other branches of the government was one of the positive moments of the proclaimed reform. Estimating the results of implementing criminal procedure policy from the formal point of view, it is possible to claim that there was an essential expansion of the rights of participants of criminal trial. Moreover, according to a number of scientists, it is possible to speak about a gradual alignment of the status of the defendant and an injured party. In this regard special attention is to be paid to ensuring the rights of the personality during the investigation of crimes in a broad sense, i.e. the rights of all persons involved in investigation: suspect and defendant, witness and injured party, as well as the rights of an investigator, prosecutor, advocate, expert, etc. However, actually, except complication of the procedure of proceedings and increase in terms of investigation, the situation, from the point of view of legality and validity of the carried-out actions and the made decisions in pre-judicial production, does not change for the better. Today, at the suggestion of liberal politicians, the position dominates that fight against crime, protection of the rights of citizens and reform of criminal legal proceedings in the democratic state are possible by liberalization of criminal and, first of all, the criminal procedure legislation. In relation to the criminal procedure law, liberalization manifested itself not only in restriction of compulsory powers of the bodies involved in carrying out criminal prosecution. Seeking to create a citadel of legal guarantees from criminal prosecution, in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation legislators complicated earlier existing procedures and entered new ones, which in actual practice are definitely impracticable, difficult in organization and time consuming, and therefore inefficient. When developing a new order of legal proceedings it is necessary to consider a modern information component, high technological effectiveness of modern society.

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