Prosecutor's Waiver of Charges in Criminal Proceedings

Abstract

In judicial practice, it is quite rare to find criminal cases that were terminated due to the refusal of the public prosecutor to charge. The reasons for such a rare use of the analyzed powers of the prosecutor are both objective and subjective. The subject of the study is the content of the prosecutor's refusal to charge and its consequences. Based on systematic and comparative legal research methods, doctrinal approaches to the role of the victim and the accused are revealed when the prosecutor decides to drop the charge. It is argued that it is necessary to preserve the discretion of the prosecutor when the charges are dropped, provided that such a decision is agreed with the parties to the criminal case and, above all, with the injured party. However, the consent of the victim cannot be considered as a mandatory condition for the prosecutor to decide to drop the charges. The grounds for terminating the criminal case and criminal prosecution when the prosecutor refuses to accuse are analyzed, and it is concluded that despite the insufficient regulation of this issue in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the prosecutor can make the appropriate decision only after a comprehensive examination of the evidence in the trial, since until that moment the prosecutor no conviction can be formed in the correctness of the decision to drop the charges and there will be no completeness in the presentation of the motives that served as the basis for its adoption.