Procedural means of a reasonable term of criminal procedure

The study of rules of criminal procedure law suggests the possibility of differentiation of the procedural rules to provide a reasonable time limit for a criminal procedure. They can be divided into general, special and concomitant ones. We should refer rules influencing the entire course of criminal proceeding to general means. For example, the principle of legality aimed at the court, the prosecutor, the investigator and the inquiry officer requires their strict law observance in the process of reaching objectives. This legal concept should be the basis of any proceedings and apply to all criminal procedure rules including rules relating to complying with procedural deadlines. However, in Russian law enforcement deviation from the prescriptions of the rules defining deadlines in a trial procedure for a long time has not been recognized as an essential law violation as these provisions were to be of secondary importance. The reasons for the current situation in the criminal proceeding seem to be in the inconsistency of legislators allowing deviations from the time limits established by the procedure code leading to law violations. The next group of rules referred to as special rules directly regulates time limits in the trial stage. It should be noted that these rules cause the greatest number of practitioners' complaints. For example, it is easy to see that the Criminal Procedure Law does not contain rules establishing the time limit of a trial. Nevertheless 46% of the surveyed judges supported the idea of establishing a fixed time limit of a trial. In our opinion this fixed time limit (with a possibility of extension) will ensure legality, rights and freedoms of individuals including the right to a criminal proceeding in a reasonable period of time. Concomitant legal provisions should be defined as regulations that do not directly establish procedural terms, but someway able to affect the duration of proceedings in the court of original jurisdiction. Article 237 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation regulating the procedure of the return of criminal cases to the prosecutor is of particular interest for us in view of the fact that it can affect the duration of criminal proceedings. The reasons for the return are law violations regarding drawing up the indictment, non-delivery of a copy of the indictment to the accused, the need for drawing up these documents in a criminal case in a court with a ruling on the application of compulsory medical measures, available grounds to connect the criminal cases as well as in cases where the rights specified in Part 5 of Article 217 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation were not explained to the accused while they were reading the criminal case file.

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