CRIMINAL OFFENSE AND POSSIBLE PROCEDURAL FORM OF PROCEEDINGS WHEN CONSIDERING FALLING UNDER THE SPECIFIED CATEGORY OF CASES

The paper proves the necessity of introduction of the concept of “criminal offense” into Russian criminal legislation, describes the possible procedural form of proceedings in criminal cases falling under the category of “criminal offense” - an inquiry in the reduced form, as well as the legal procedure of consideration of such cases. Draft amendments to the RF Criminal Code, namely, in part 2 of Art. 15 are submitted to the RF State Duma; they suggest recognizing minor crimes, not providing for the punishment in the form of imprisonment, as a criminal infraction. Up to now, this draft raises many questions as the legislator has not appropriately proved the importance and timeliness of introduction of such concept, has not specified in what procedural form the proceedings in criminal cases of specified category will be conducted, implying that it can be carried out in the form of simple or reduced inquiry, as well as has not specified legal procedure of their consideration. However, if the use of a simple inquest when investigating criminal cases of this category is in no doubt, the use of the reduced form of the inquiry on crimes recognized as a criminal offense is questionable. Appealing to the history of Russian criminal legislation and current European criminal law, the author proves the conclusion that the introduction of the concept of “criminal offense” is urgent and necessary and suggests validating such procedural form of proceedings on specified criminal cases, formerly existed in the criminal procedure legislation of the RSFSR and the RF and existing in the European criminal procedure, as a protocol form of investigative actions, as well as accepting the legal procedure of their consideration, taking the experience of Belarus and Kazakhstan as a model.