A logical-legal model of Russian pretrial criminal proceedings: the separation of investigation and criminal prosecution

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Abstract: A logical-legal analysis of the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation has revealed a conceptual inconsistency in pretrial proceedings, manifested in the imposition on preliminary investigation bodies of two multidirectional functions simultaneously – objective investigation of the circumstances of the act and criminal prosecution of guilty persons; and on the prosecutor – functions of supervision and criminal prosecution that are not organisationally separated from one another. The author proposes to abstract from the established doctrinal approaches concerning the traditional stages of the pretrial phase, the legislative consolidation of tasks and functions of state bodies operating in pretrial proceedings, and to analyse pretrial proceedings in a logical-legal paradigm, subjecting to critical analysis the types and purposes of procedural activity from the moment of receiving a report of a crime to the completion of the investigation, the formulation and approval of the charges, and the referral of the criminal case to court. The applied approach allowed assessing the quality of legal regulation of preliminary investigation and criminal prosecution in pretrial proceedings and substantiating the conclusion on the need to change the structure of pretrial proceedings, applying as a criterion for designating stages the specificity of types of state-authoritative activity serving distinct purposes. The first stage of pretrial proceedings, the content of which comprises the activity of the investigating body from the receipt of a report of a crime to the completion of the investigation, is called the stage of preliminary investigation. The content of the second stage comprises the activity of the prosecutor in pretrial proceedings from the moment of receiving the results of the investigation to the formulation of the public prosecution and the referral of the criminal case to court, which allows it to be called the stage of initiating criminal prosecution. The proposed logical-legal model shows the place and role of each type of state-authoritative activity in pretrial criminal proceedings and makes it possible to redefine the procedural status of officials operating in pretrial proceedings, their goals and tasks.

About the authors

Rodion O. Kozhevnikov

Togliatti State University

Author for correspondence.
Email: kozhevnikov.rodion@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0009-0007-2438-3498

lecturer, Institute of Law

Russian Federation, 445020, Russia, Togliatti, Belorusskaya Street, 14.

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