ELECTRONIC CRIME INCIDENT REPORT AS A REASON TO INITIATE A CRIMINAL CASE (THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LEGAL REGULATION IN THE NORMATIVE ACTS OF THE RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND THE RF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CODE)

The integration and active application of electronic document flow to the daily activities of the police have consistently and logically led to the fact that the electronic crime incident report is increasingly used as a reason to initiate criminal cases. The departmental normative legal acts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia regulate in detail the processing of such reports. However, under the RF Criminal Procedure Code, not all electronic crime reports registered by the Departments of Internal Affairs meet the established requirements, and, accordingly, they can not perform the function of a criminal procedural cause. In this situation, with the obvious relevance of electronic documents, an example of a contradiction and gap in the law is evident, which somewhat hinders the development of electronic interaction between the participants of criminal procedural activity and can cause negative consequences. The paper analyzes and compares the provisions of some normative sources regulating the reception and consideration of electronic crime reports by the Departments of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the norms of criminal procedural legislation. The author critically evaluates the legal definitions of the concept of a crime incident report and some organizational and legal mechanisms for accepting and considering electronic crime reports established by the departmental legal acts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. The study highlights and clarifies the rules of filing, mandatory requisites, and some other requirements for electronic crime reports, which must be complied with according to the provisions of the criminal procedure code. Based on the data obtained, the author offers recommendations to improve criminal procedural law and the algorithm of accepting electronic crime reports using the official websites of the Departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.