International Standards of Preventive Measures and Their Implementations in the Legislation of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The goal of this research is to identify problems arising during the implementation of international standards for the selection of preventive measures into Russian criminal procedure legislation. The authors specify the concept of international standards of criminal court proceedings, present the specific features of their incorporation into constitutional norms as well as rules in different branches of law. The importance of preventive measures in the general mechanism of legal regulation is shown. The authors prove the necessity of systemic changes in the part of Russian legislation that deals with the legal regulation of preventive measures with the purpose of creating an integrated mechanism of criminal prosecution and protection against it. Key findings of research include: 1) Russian criminal proceedings, including its part regulating the selection of preventive measures, should fully correspond to international standards; 2) international standards are implemented in Russian criminal procedure legislation both indirectly, though constitutional clauses, and directly, through the improvements in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation; 3) preventive measures should only be selected if there are sufficient grounds for them, and these grounds are not the at the discretion of officials involved in criminal proceedings, they are real evidence in the materials of a criminal case that is necessary and sufficient for selecting a specific measure from the measures included in the law; 4) circumstances that are taken into consideration when selecting a preventive measure, if they potentially provide for a stricter measure from their general list, should be explicitly laid down in the law, and contrary to this, the list of circumstances that could improve the position of a person is not exhaustive; 5) to give a person an opportunity to defend their position, the possibility of selecting the preventive measure of detention is only feasible for the accused, and should be excluded for the suspect; 6) since the proper behavior of a person, from the position of the prosecution, is to give testimony that proves their involvement in a crime, the corresponding indication that this is necessary to ensure such behavior should be removed from the law when selecting the preventive measure of recognizance not to leave; 7) the supervision of the command staff of a military base over military personnel should not be substituted with an actual deprivation or limitation of the freedom of movement within the territory of the base; 8) when there are no grounds for selecting detention, the court should have a possibility to select any other preventive measure from those included in the law. From the methodological standpoint, this research is an analysis of international normative legal acts and generally recognized principles and norms of international law regulating preventive measures as well as the problems of their implementation in Russian criminal proceedings. The following methods were used: comparative legal, historic legal, sociological, interpretation of law norms, a number of logical methods. The obtained data was used to formulate key conclusions, which made it possible to correctly use a number of terms, and determine the necessity of a systemic improvement of Russian legislation through the introduction of mechanisms that ensure the rights, liberties and lawful interests of a person when selecting a preventive measure.