On expansion of criminal procedure security measures of participants of criminal legal proceedings

The current Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation (CPC of the RF) sets five security measures enlisted in Article 11, Part 3. Being regulated by the norms of the CPC of the RF and applied only in criminal procedure, these measures are called criminal procedural ones and can be referred to the group of legal means of state protection and security measures for the participants in a criminal trial. The Federal law "On state protection of victims, witnesses and other participants in criminal proceedings" includes a wide range of alternative remedies. Moreover, the Federal law "On operational search activities" provides for definite security means. One of five security measures is the control and recording of both telephone and other conversations of victims, witnesses, their close and relatives, relatives and connected people. This procedural act has much in common with, at least, other three criminal procedural acts which can be applied for the security of the participants in criminal proceedings. Inadmissibility of the divulgence of the preliminary investigation data enables an investigator to notify the participants in criminal proceedings about the inadmissibility to divulge the preliminary investigation data without a special permission. These data can be relevant to those upon whom the security measures were taken, are taken or will be taken. Arrest of postal telegraph messages, their removal and inspection can be considered and used as a separate security measure for the participants in criminal proceedings. The author pays attention to modern tendencies in the development of science and technology that give rise to some new types and means of communication, including "the necessity to protect IDs for the Internet connection". The acquisition of information about the connections between subscribers and (or) subscriber units can increase the security provisions in order to find those who exercise an undue influence on the people under protection. The right to the telephone calls privacy implies a complex of actions in the sphere of protection of information obtained in the course of telephone conversations irrespective of the arrival time, volume and content of this information at various stages of conversations. Due to their nature, the above procedural actions tend to be similar with investigative operations. However, the security of the participants in criminal proceedings cannot be ensured by the criminal procedural means only. The author thinks that some non-procedural measures such as operational search ones can also serve as security measures and are worth developing.

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