The witness personal interest in a criminal procedure. interconnection of a private interest of a witness and his functions

A witness was referred by law toother persons involved in criminal procedure. The witness is involved to assist state authorities to reach their goals. This coulddetermine his (or her) activity as the function of assistance to justice. However, there are some reasons to say that the part of the witnessin criminal procedure is not limited only by this function. Functions of the witness can change by his legal interests, which are veryvaried. The problem of legal interest was analysed in criminal procedure literature, but researchers have not dealt with legal interests ofwitnesses. Legal interests of the witness have been discussed only as his (or her) duty to say the truth to the investigator or the court,which brings up some questions. Two of them are if the witness in criminal procedure has his (or her) own legal interest and if we coulddiscuss it. This article deals with affirmative answers for these questions. The witness in criminal procedure has many rights, whichmakes him (or her) an independent and, in some respects, active participant of criminal procedure. Thereby we could believe that,according to the witness wants, there are some of his legal interests: 1) the interest to testify his (or her) statements and not to beaccused in perjury; 2) the interest in his (or her) own safety and safety of his relatives; 3) the interest not to testify against his (or her)spouse or relatives; 4) the interest to testify without any violations of his (or her) rights. As we can see these witness legal interests arenot beyond his (or her) function of assistance to justice. But practice shows that the witness can have specific legal interests that couldchange his (or her) basic function. There are situations when a person is not a suspect or an accused by law, but in fact he (or she)realizes the function of defence, i.e. refutation of suspicions. The most prominence example of the situation is the resolution of theConstitutional Court of RF of June 27, 2000 № 11-П by the Maslovs complaint. There are other situations when a person is a victim,but he (or she) is interrogated as a witness. In this case that person has an interest in being recognized as a victim, obtainingcompensation and bringing the perpetrator to justice, i.e. realizing the function of accusing. As we can see, the function of assistance tojustice is not the only function of witnesses. According to witness legal interest he (or she) can perform the function of defence or thefunction of accusing. It seems to be one of the reasons to give the witness a right to advocate.

Keywords

Authors

References