RETURNING TO HISTORICAL ORIGINS AS A REFLECTION OF THE NATIONAL IDENTITY OF RUSSIAN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

Abstract

Conceptually, the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation was designed to reform the Soviet criminal process, embodying the principle of adversarial criminal proceedings. To this end, some provisions were introduced into the Code, which, according to the authors, were intended to restructure the existing mechanism of criminal procedural activities into an adversarial form: the replacement of the tasks of criminal proceedings with its purpose; the rejection of the leading principle of comprehensiveness, completeness, and objectivity in the investigation of case circumstances and the foregrounding of the principle of adversarial parties; the consolidation of the functions of prosecution, defense, and case resolution; the systematization of participants in the criminal process in accordance with their functions; the recognition of the defense counsel as a subject of evidence gathering, and others. Nevertheless, the Code, originally enacted under the sway of pro-Western, so-called liberal-democratic ideologies, has undergone significant transformations. A multitude of new provisions have markedly reshaped its structure and modified the content of its sections and chapters, thereby undeniably impacting the conceptual paradigm established by its authors in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The study was performed using the dialectical method, which facilitated the establishment of historical links and the inherent conditioning of national criminal procedure. General scientific methods (logical, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction) were instrumental in forming the theoretical foundation of the research and uncovering the regularities in the evolution of Russian criminal procedure. Specific scientific methods (formal-legal, interpretation of legal norms) enabled the development of concrete proposals for further optimizing modern criminal procedural activity. Results: Historically, the national criminal process has been shaped as a two-stage system, which, alongside the judicial stage, also includes a pre-trial production phase. In this system, state authoritative public bodies play a leading role, focused on establishing objective truth. This is why attempts to restructure such a historically established construct into an adversarial Anglo-Saxon legal system, undertaken in the 1990s, proved unsuccessful. Subsequent numerous adjustments to the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation were aimed not at expanding adversarial principles, but at achieving a balance between public and private interests, which objectively led to a qualitatively new direction in reforming the entire criminal justice system.