Rules-principles of criminal proceedings: law and theory

The study aims to formulate the proposals aimed at optimizing the Chapter 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (CPC of RF), which enshrines the principles of criminal justice. The authors of the given article examine the content of the rules-principles, i.e. legislative regulations that express and enshrine the principles of law. It is stated that we should distinguish the rules-principles and rules-beginnings, rules containing general permissions and prohibitions and rules-definitions because of the first receive development and logical expression in the second. Attention is drawn to the fact that when discussing the nature of the court procedure we should bear in mind that principles make up the content exclusively of legal awareness. At the stage of drafting of the rules, the principles-ideas become regulatory and legal in nature. The developers of the CPC of the RF are criticized, as they did not take advantage of the scientifically valid system of principles of the criminal proceedings. The authors ask why among the rules-principles reflected in the Chapter 2 of the CPC of the Russian Federation, there was no place for many provisions, previously traditionally recognized as such; why the fundamental provisions of the regulation in other laws, including the Constitution of the Russian Federation, were not enshrined in the CPC of the RF. Based on the analysis of the scientific literature and the provisions of the criminal procedure law, the authors conclude that one of the obvious omissions of the developers of the CPC of the RF is the non-inclusion of the provision on equality of all before the law and the court in the number of rules-principles. Objections were raised against the absence of other provisions in the CPC of the RF, previously considered fundamental for criminal proceedings, namely, publicity (officiality) of criminal proceedings, as well as comprehensiveness, completeness, the objectivity of investigation of all the circumstances of the case. Besides, the authors concluded that the contents of separate articles of Chapter 2 of the CPC of the RF, and, in fact, such independent principles, designated by the legislators as "Respect for the honour and dignity of the individual" (Article 9 of the CPC of the RF); "Immunity of the individual" (Article 10 of the CPC of the RF); "The sanctity of the dwelling" (Article 12 of the CPC of the RF); "The secrecy of correspondence, telephone and other negotiations, postal, telegraph and other communications" (Article 13 of the CPC of the RF) can be combined into one group, in Article 11 of the CPC of the RF "Protection of human rights and freedoms in criminal proceedings”. Critical assessment is given to the content of Article 7 of the CPC of the Russian Federation, which is reduced to a formal prohibition for the court, prosecutor, investigator, investigative body and interrogator to apply federal law or other rules contrary to the CPC of the Russian Federation. The current version of Article 7 of the CPC, which enshrines the fundamental principle of legality in criminal proceedings, is inconsistent with modern theoretical views on the essence, content and meaning of the principle of legality in law. The authors conclude that the content of the rules-principles, their system, enshrined in Chapter 2 of the CPC of the Russian Federation, are imperfect and need to be adjusted under the fundamental theoretical developments.

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