Criminal Procedure Code of Russia: Twenty Years Later (2001–2021)

Abstract

Introduction. 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, adopted by the State Duma on November 22, 2001 by Federal Law No. 174-FZ. The development of criminal procedure legislation in these years was not always consistent, often characterized by chaotic and hasty measures. Nevertheless, the main factors that determine the development of modern criminal procedure legislation, as well as the key trends in the legal regulation of criminal procedure legal relations, have remained fairly stable for twenty years. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The object of the study is the norms of criminal procedure law that have emerged and developed during the period of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation since 2001. The methodological basis of the study is the general dialectical method of scientific knowledge, which allowed us to study the subject of the study in relation to other legal phenomena, as well as general scientific methods of knowledge (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy, and modelling) and private scientific methods of knowledge (formal legal, historical-legal, and comparative-legal). Results. Among the variety of various factors that determine the development of modern criminal procedure legislation, there are several main ones: 1. The impact of international standards in the field of criminal justice on Russian criminal proceedings. Having ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Citizens’ Rights and Freedoms in 1998, Russia voluntarily assumed obligations in the field of ensuring citizens rights and freedoms, as well as creating the necessary conditions for their implementation. Among the most important criminal procedure norms and institutions that have emerged in the system of criminal procedure regulation under the influence of the positions of the ECHR, the following are notable: a reasonable period of criminal proceedings, the rights of participants in the verification of a crime report, the disclosure of the testimony of an absent witness at a court session, and alternative preventive measures to detention. 2. Optimisation of procedural resources and improvement of the efficiency of criminal proceedings. From the very beginning of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, there was a special procedure for judicial proceedings, which is a simplified form of consideration of criminal cases, provided for in Chapter 40 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. In 2009, this procedure was extended to cases with concluded pre-trial cooperation agreements (Chapter 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation), and in 2013, the institute of abbreviated inquiry appeared in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation (Chapter 321 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). 3. Social demand for increasing the independence of the court, and the adversarial nature of criminal proceedings. Society’s needs to improve the independence of judges, increase public confidence in the court, transparency and quality of justice led to the reform of the jury court in 2016 (Federal Law of 23 June 2016 N 190-FZ). As a result of the reform, the court with the participation of jurors began to function at the level of district courts, the jurisdiction of criminal cases for jurors was expanded, the number of jurors was reduced from 12 to 8 in regional courts and 6 in district courts. However, practice has shown that sentences handed down by a court on the basis of a verdict rendered by a jury are overturned by higher courts much more often than others due to committed violations, which are associated, among other things, with the inability to ensure the objectivity of jurors. In the context of a request for an independent court, Article 81 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation on the independence of judges (Federal Law of 2 July 2013 N 166-FZ) was adopted. 4. Reducing the degree of criminal repression. In the context of this trend, institutions have emerged in the criminal and criminal procedure laws that regulate new types of exemption from criminal liability. In 2011, Article 281 “Termination of criminal prosecution in connection with compensation for damage” was adopted, concerning a number of criminal cases on tax and other economic crimes (Federal Law of 7 December 2011 N 420). In 2016, the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation introduced rules on the termination of a criminal case or criminal prosecution in connection with the appointment of a criminal law measure in the form of a court fine (Federal Law of 3 July 2016 N 323-FZ). 5. Digitalisation of modern society. The rapid development of information technologies and their implementation in all spheres of public life has put on the agenda the question of adapting a rather archaic “paper” criminal process to the needs of today, and the possibilities of using modern information technologies in the process of criminal proceedings. Among the innovations in this area, it should be noted the appearance in the criminal procedure law of Article 1861 “Obtaining information about connections between subscribers and (or) subscriber devices” (Federal Law of 1 July 2010 N 143-FZ), Article 4741 “The procedure for using electronic documents in criminal proceedings” (Federal Law of 23 June 2016 N 220-FZ), the legal regulation of video-conferencing in criminal proceedings (Federal Law of 20 March 2011 N 39-FZ), and the introduction of audio recording of court sessions (Federal Law of 29 July 2018-FZ N 228-FZ), etс. Currently, the possibilities of further digitalisation of criminal proceedings, and the use of programs based on artificial intelligence in criminal proceedings, ets. are being actively discussed. Discussion and Conclusion. The main factors determining the vector of development of modern criminal justice should, in our opinion, include the impact of international standards in the field of criminal justice on Russian criminal justice; optimisation of procedural resources and the need to improve the efficiency of criminal justice, social demands for strengthening the independence of the court, adversarial criminal proceedings; the needs of society to reduce the degree of criminal repression, and digitalisation of modern society.