Judicial authority and its manifestation in criminal trials

After the Constitution of the Russian Federation had entrenched the separation of powers, judicial authority acquired one more function - to serve as a system of checks and balances in relation to other branches of power (judicial control over the legality of investigative bodies' activities). There is no consensus whether judicial control is an independent function or it is a part of justice. It seems certain that judicial control and justice are independent functions of judicial authority. They have different problems, objects and methods of regulation. Justice decides criminal cases whereas judicial control prevents investigators from going beyond the legal framework. Justice has a tough method of regulation with a detailed legal rulemaking, manifestation of authoritativeness concerning the subjects of criminal trial allowing the application of coercion towards the subjects. Judicial control has a mild regulation method, settled by the law only in general and therefore, allowing a considerable judicial discretion. Authoritativeness manifestation is milder here; application of coercion to subjects is inadmissible. Despite such great differences, both types of judicial activity are in one law, i.e. in the CC of RF, forming a uniform criminal trial where the elements of different methods are mixed. It is highly unlikely to recognize such a situation to be normal. Criminal trial is a system the elements of which are not only interconnected, but also exert impact on each other. Being in one system with justice, a considerably milder method of regulation of judicial control can result in the vagueness of justice and this is dangerous for the court when it applies the norms of the toughest branch of law - a criminal one. Some authors propose changing the current situation. The most radical proposal is to divide justice and judicial control between different courts or to retain them in one court but for different judges and to create special court chambers for this purpose. However, nowadays when fundamental judicial reforms are going on, the realization of radical measures is unreal. Therefore, a minimum measure is proposed: to structure the standards of justice and judicial control and place them in the separate sections of the CC of RF.

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