Shadrin, V.S. Initiation phase of criminal process: from the Charter of Criminal Judicial Proceedings to the current criminal procedural law

Abstract: The author analyzes the development of the stage of initiation of a case in the Russian criminal process from the time of adoption of the Charter of Criminal Judicial Proceedings of 1864 to the current time, when the Criminal Procedural Code (in its latest version) is in force. The term “initiation of a criminal case” was used in the Charter of Criminal Judicial Proceedings only to establish the reason for the start of preliminary investigation, while in fact in the period after such a reason police or a judicial investigator could take a number of measures quite similar to those provided for in the current criminal procedural legislation. Later in the Soviet Criminal Procedural Codes of 1923 and 1960 the stage of initiation of a criminal case was finally formed and it was similarly provided for in the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation. Currently this stage is being reformed, and it is reasonable to use the experience in the sphere of issues of pre-trial proceedings at the time when the Charter of Criminal Judicial Proceedings of 1864 was adopted and applied. When writing this article the author mostly used a historic method in addition to the general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as logical and formal legal methods. The scientific novelty is due to the approach of the author towards topical issues of formation and reforming of the stage of initiation of a criminal case in the Russian criminal process and analysis of the said stage with the due regard to its legal regulation by the Federal Law of March 4, 2013 N 23-FZ. As a result of the study the author makes a conclusion that it is possible and desirable to resolve some topical issues in the sphere of initiation of the criminal case in the modern science of Russian criminal process and law making in the process of further correction of legal regulation of the stage of initiation of a criminal case.

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