THE ADVERSARIAL PRINCIPLE AND THE BALANCE OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

The proper understanding of the principles of adversarial proceedings and equality of the parties before the court in the administration of criminal proceedings was seriously transformed during the period of operation of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. This was largely influenced by the neoliberal Western agenda, actively imposed in the Russian Federation until 2022. Contrary to the historically formed public-law form of organisation of criminal proceedings in Russia, an expansive interpretation of the principle of adversarial proceedings and equality of the parties before the court was promoted, which influenced the formation, primarily among defence lawyers, of unfounded proposals to equalise the procedural opportunities of the lawyer and the investigator. The purpose of the study is to prove the necessity of transforming modern national criminal procedure legislation and the practice of its application to ensure the relationship with the current stage of development of our state, its historically established constitutional law and institutional forms. The paper provides examples of the organisation of criminal proceedings in other states, showing a very selective approach not only to the principle of adversarial proceedings and equality of parties in criminal proceedings, but also to the principle of presumption of innocence. The main research methods are the system-structural method, the comparative method, analysis, synthesis, and induction. Special legal and logical research methods are used. The study concludes that there is a need for a rational approach to the procedural possibilities of implementing the principle of adversarial proceedings and equality of parties as a permissible balance of public and private in the public-law form of organising criminal proceedings in the state, which primarily affects the preservation of state sovereignty in criminal proceedings. At the same time, it is pointed out that there are no contradictions between the adversarial method and the method of comprehensiveness, completeness and objectivity in criminal proceedings and that it should be normatively enshrined in the current criminal procedure legislation as a norm-principle.