On seizure of objects and documents when checking crime reports

The subject of the research in the article is the normative mechanism for implementing the investigator's power to conduct activities aimed at the seizure of objects and documents at the stage of a criminal case initiation. Problems arising during the checking actions of this kind unsolved by the legislator are identified, ways to address them are suggested. The article aims to determine the legal nature of the seizure of objects and documents to establish the optimal implementation mode. The issues are solved of the correlation of seizure and reclamation of objects and documents by analyzing Pt. 4 of Art. 21 of the RF Code of Criminal Procedure, of the possibility to use the potential of investigative activities provided by the RF Code of Criminal Procedure for seizing objects and documents. The rules and conditions necessary for the legal and efficient performance of the investigative action which will result in the seizure of objects and documents of evidentiary value are also analyzed. The author makes the following conclusions. Reclamation of documents from institutions, enterprises and organizations in the order established by Pt. 4 Art. 21 of the RF Code of Criminal Procedure cannot be exercised for the purpose of seizure of objects and documents, as reclamation and seizure are different actions. Reclamation involves the possibility of obtaining documents of interest or their copies on a voluntary basis from officials in charge of this or that institution, enterprise, organization. Seizure of the same objects and documents involves the coercive nature of this action. Seizure of objects and documents is impossible under such investigative actions as search and caption; the main obstacles are the prohibition of this investigative action prior to the initiation of a criminal case and unreasonableness of expanding the range of investigative actions before initiating a case. Thus, the author concludes that the seizure of objects and documents is possible only within inspection (inspection of the crime scene, objects and documents). It is impossible to substitute inspection or search of a house by the crime scene examination in a house. Fixation and strict compliance with the rules already set out in the RF Code of Criminal Procedure and established by the acts of the Constitutional Court will contribute to the legality of the preliminary investigation, to the indisputable admissibility of evidence obtained at the stage of a criminal case initiation, to combating the unjustified expansion of the procedural and investigative actions prior to the initiation of a criminal case.

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