THE EXPERIENCE OF REGULATION OF POWERS OF A DEFENSE LAWYER ACCORDING TO THE STATUTE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE OF 1864 AND THE RF CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

The paper considers the issue of the improvement of the defender’s procedural status in the current criminal procedure. The authors analyze the respective statements of the Statute of Criminal Procedure of 1864. The study states that one of the significant results of the Great judicial reform of Emperor Alexander II was the introduction of professional advocacy. However, the defender’s status established by the Statute distinguished itself by the unprecedented development, vesting a defender with powers absent in the previous legislation. The paper analyzes the particular procedural powers of a defender concerning an optimal model of their regulation. The study shows that, in general, the statements of the RF Code Criminal Procedure have moved so far forward compared to the similar Statute statements, especially concerning the access of a defender to the stage of a pre-trial investigation. However, it appears that to solve many problematic aspects of the current status of a defender, the experience of corresponding procedural regulation in the Statute can be a target to improve this status. In particular, the authors focus on the fact that, according to the Statute norms, a defender was less limited in the right to copy data and the materials of a criminal case. The study substantiates that a defender in the pre-revolutionary period had much more opportunities to offer evidence to a court; particularly, it concerned the proof of witness. According to the Statute statements, the parties were procedurally equal in the right to refer to special knowledge, which is absent in the current criminal procedure. The paper states that at the moment, the defender’s right to gather evidence has some significant gaps and limitations compared to the similar right during the term of the Statute.