TRENDS TOWARD SIMPLIFICATION OF INQUIRY: RETURNING TO THE ROOTS, ENVISIONING THE FUTURE, OR A DEAD END?

Abstract

The relevance of this article is determined by the necessity to evaluate the prospects of current law-making trends related to the simplification of criminal procedure activities of investigative bodies. These trends are aimed at reducing their official workload, shortening the timeframes for completing their tasks, decreasing budget allocations for their maintenance, and achieving other positive results. Purpose: To identify the causes that predetermined the emergence of well-known yet unresolved problems inherent in abbreviated preliminary inquiry as one of the modern forms of pre-trial criminal investigation. In preparing the article, the following general scientific methods were used: the dialectical method for a comprehensive study of legal phenomena; the systemic method for examining complex phenomena as structural parts of a unified system; the structural-functional method for identifying features and gaps in legal regulation; the logical method for establishing connections between facts, etc., as well as specific scientific methods: the formal-legal method for studying the structure of legal phenomena and processes, determining their types, place, and role in the hierarchy of other legal phenomena, establishing the features of interaction and interdependence of legal categories using the rules of formal logic and norms of current legislation; the historical-legal method for evaluating the phenomena under consideration from the perspective of their past form, content, and essence, etc. Results: the article identifies the factors that led to the inconsistency of the rules for conducting an abbreviated inquiry and its limited use in law enforcement practice: 1) discordance with deeply entrenched perceptions of the mechanisms of pre-trial criminal proceedings; 2) the presence of a number of additional conditions unusual for a standard inquiry; 3) poor quality of the relevant legislative provisions. The article states that such factors are derivative and stem from a common root cause of most shortcomings inherent in abbreviated inquiry – the inherently reductive nature of this form of preliminary investigation. This reduces its essence exclusively to a set of exceptions from the general inquiry procedure, i.e., to an unacceptable simplification for law-making purposes of a mechanism that was previously complex, for solving the tasks facing the bodies of inquiry. The article concludes that the underlying ideas were inherently flawed, and consequently, any legislative trends aiming to simplify inquiry are unpromising.