Review of cases on newly opened and new circumstances: unfavourable distinctions of the criminal proceedings

The article deals with the comparative analysis of the procedure and grounds for reviewing court cases under new and newly discovered circumstances in criminal and arbitration, civil and administrative proceedings. The author proceeds from the idea of common fundamental beginnings of justice in general, and therefore, all types of judicial activities - including an extraordinary review of judicial decisions, which have entered into legal force. The branch specifics of specific procedural institutions should have a special explanation based on the specifics of the branch itself. The author thinks that there is no key basis for reviewing the case on the newly discovered circumstances in the criminal trial and attempts to replace it with one of the new circumstances. In this part, the current criminal procedure law differs unfavourably from the Soviet Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) of the RSFSR of 1960 - among the newly discovered circumstances, there are no those that could indicate a miscarriage of justice made out of direct connection with someone's criminal actions. In the current CPC of the Russian Federation, the list of newly discovered circumstances is closed, and the list of new circumstances that entail the review of the court decisions is, on the contrary, open. Examples of academic papers and administrative enactments justifying such a replacement are given. The author gives his arguments against it and proposes to change the list of grounds for revision, referring to the regulation in other procedural branches, historical and foreign experience. A significant procedural difference of the considered type of extraordinary review of cases in criminal proceedings from other types of proceedings is found. It is the need for applicants to request a review from the prosecutor, not from the court. The greatest objection is the non-alternative procedure: the prosecutor is a participant in the criminal proceedings on the part of the prosecution, he is responsible for the undoubted proof of the charge, which is the basis of the sentence, the abolition of which is requested by another interested person. The negative impact of the prosecutor's mediation between the complainant and the court on access to justice and its quality is argued. It is pointed out that there is no need for prosecutorial checks to resolve the issue of judicial review of the case. The analysis of judicial statistics in different branches of justice shows that criminal proceedings differ sharply by the negligible number of judicial review cases due to newly discovered and new circumstances. The article calls into question the ability to explain this fact by a higher quality of sentences in criminal cases in comparison with other court decisions in other court cases.

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