Criminal procedure form: boundaries of the necessary and sufficient

The criminal procedure form is an integral part of the content of the criminal procedure itself and the object of the fiercest discussions in science, noticeably overloaded with ideological theses and arguments, sharp, sometimes excessively emotional criticism of the current law and of opponents proposing some changes and amendments to this law. The question of where the objectively necessary set of formal prescriptions of the law regarding criminal-procedural activity ends and obvious procedural and documentary excesses begin was chosen for a detailed analysis. The “formalization” of the Russian criminal process is a negative trend in its modern development. The example of the consideration of petitions by the investigator shows the presence of obvious procedural excesses provided for by the current Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. In the literature, the global “administrativization” of domestic justice in the first years of the Soviet regime and the shortage of qualified legal personnel loyal to it are named as the historical reason for this trend. Some authors argue that the actual elimination of both of these factors in subsequent history did not lead to a simplification of the criminal procedure form and mention examples of excessive “formalization”. Examples from the 1864 Charter of Criminal Procedure show that even before the Soviet period of Russian history, the relationship between representatives of power – the judicial investigator and the police, as well as between authorities and persons not vested with power – was always regulated in detail. As a result, a conclusion was formulated that the criminal procedure form is a necessary condition for the legitimacy of the authorities’ law enforcement, the personification of its application and responsibility for it. In this part, the detail of normative regulation and documentary registration cannot be considered excessive.