REFLECTIONS ON THE ROLE OF CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS IN THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL CONCEPT OF THE STATE

Abstract

Recognizing the axiomatic interconnection between the political and legal framework of the state and its criminal proceedings, it is important to define the significance of the state’s ideological foundations for the formation of a sovereign model of criminal procedure. The rejection of the ideological component in Russia between 1990 and 2020, made in service to the so-called Western civilization, the formation of a political and legal concept contrary to the historical continuity in the development of the Russian state (Part 3 of Article 67.1 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation), coupled with the uncritical adoption of Western models of state law regulation of legal relations as a basis, including in matters of organizing criminal proceedings, have led to the risk of a threat to state sovereignty. This threat is caused by the explicitly declarative nature of numerous constitutional and other normative provisions, that were mechanically incorporated into the positive legal system. These provisions were neither intellectually nor institutionally prepared for by society, and in some cases were introduced despite their clear contradiction to historically established mechanisms for the exercising specific legal relations. The purpose of the research is to substantiate the significance of ideological factors in the formation of both the political and legal concept of the state and the national model of criminal procedure. Main research methods: historical and comparative methods are used to demonstrate the identity of the methods of transformation of the political and legal structure of the Russian state during the Petrine and post-Soviet periods; the system-structural method enables the consideration of criminal proceedings as an element of the state’s political and legal system; correlation analysis reveals the relationship between the ideological component in the state and the political and legal structure, including models of criminal procedure; the legal-dogmatic method and the interpretation of legal norms are used in the analysis of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as well as the criminal procedural legislation of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods; the logical method allows for formulating the conclusions based on the research results. Results: The article concludes that it is necessary to bring criminal procedure legislation into line with the political and legal concept of the state transformed in 2020 (including through the constitutional entrenchment of ideological foundations). This cannot be achieved by introducing individual amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, but rather requires the development and adoption of a new Criminal Procedure Code.