Access to justice as element of mechanism ensuring defence of personal rights and freedom in courts

The problems of correlation of notions 'access to justice'' and ''defence of personal rights in court'' are under consideration in the present article: the legal nature, content and functional purpose of the above mentioned categories are determined. On the basis of consideration of different approaches to understanding of the defence of personal rights in court, the author comes to a conclusion about the possibility of consideration of the notion as a mechanism of legal regulation ensuring the protection of rights and legal interests via justice. While examining the functional significance of the mentioned notions the author concludes that access to justice is called to ensure both the absence of excessive obstacles for initiation and further development of criminal procedure and the possibility of the injured party to influence its course and results. Thus, the tasks of the mechanism of ensuring access to justice are considered to be intermediate as compared with the tasks of the defence of personal rights and freedoms in court which, in the end, can be the same as the tasks of criminal procedure. The difference of functional significance of the mechanism of ensuring access to justice and the defense in court presupposes non-coincidence of their content. Institution and development of criminal proceedings depends in many aspects on the realization of the mechanism ensuring the effectiveness and fairness of the preliminary investigation and trial. And if the injured party has an opportunity to be actively involved in the investigation and trial it ensures their impartiality, fairness, fullness and legality. But it is hardly possible to assume that availability of justice is a sufficient circumstance for a fair and legal disposal of a case. At the same time, not all mechanisms ensuring fairness in criminal procedure are connected with the ensuring of access to justice. For example, the right of a person not to testify against close relatives or the right not to be repeatedly prosecuted on the same conviction is not covered by the content of access to justice. Interrelation of the mentioned elements of court defence can not serve as a basis for acknowledgment of their identity as it is a system characteristic. Having examined the specified problems the author comes to a conclusion, according to which ''access to justice'' and ''defence in court'' are interrelated as the part and the whole. Access to justice should be considered as an independent element of the mechanism, ensuring the defence of personal rights and freedoms in court.

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