Contumacy as one of the main causes of reasonable time limits violation of criminal cases reading

One of the main causes of the violation of reasonable terms incriminal cases is the absence of persons summoned to court. The analysis of criminal cases shows that most part of them is postponedbecause of the absence of victims and witnesses. It is typical that the evidence confirming the presence of good reasons of absence isalmost never given. Moreover, in some cases there is a repeated non-appearance of the same individuals. The only measure of proceduralcompulsion, which can be applied to a person defaulted without a good reason, is a compulsory process. In practice it is impossibleto enforce the participants of criminal proceedings to fulfil their responsibility to appear in court. In addition, there is no rule, establishingthe procedure of calling to court in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, and some persons in general are notinformed about the possibility of applying such a measure as procedural compulsion to them, and in some cases they are informed aboutthe date, place of judicial session when it is too late. It is necessary to mention that the Code of Criminal Procedure lacks guarantees ofthe rights of the victim, the witness, their legal representatives and attesting witnesses to reimbursement of losses in wages for the timespent in court (if these people work) or of money for the distraction from their usual occupations (if these people do not have permanentearnings), as well as of the travelling expenses to the place of the realization of procedural actions and accommodation. The realizationof these rights, I think, could to a large extent encourage the mentioned above individuals to bona fide implementation of the obligationto appear in court. On the basis of the above, I think it is expedient to introduce a number of changes concerning the procedure of callingto court; measures of procedural compulsion, which can be applied to persons defaulted without good reason, as well as guaranteesof the rights of parties to criminal proceedings to recover costs connected with their participation in the trial into the Code of CriminalProcedure of the Russian Federation. I believe that the proposed changes in criminal procedure, will reduce the number of cases of absenceof those summoned to court greatly and this will provide a possibility of reasonable time limits for proceedings in criminal cases.

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