Necessity to Reject Pre-Trial Inquiry as a Procedural Form of Investigation

Abstract

A comparative legal analysis of procedural forms of inquiry and preliminary investigation leads to a conclusion about their similarity, as well as the similarity of procedural statuses of an investigator and interrogator (a person conducting an initial inquiry). This shows that the State distributes forces and resources in the field of criminal justice irrationally. At the same time, the existence of two similar forms of investigation does not lead to an improvement in the legality and quality of criminal cases investigation. On the contrary, this contributes in some cases to their deterioration (reasonable timing of proceedings in criminal cases, compensation of damage caused by crimes to victims), as confirmed by the data provided in the paper. The consolidation of similar procedural forms of investigation in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation proves that the national historical experience of the organization of investigation of crimes under the 1864 Charter of Criminal Proceedings is ignored. This means an unreasonable refusal to reform criminal proceedings, the necessity and directions of which were identified by the 1991 Concept of Judicial Reform of the RSFSR . The consequences are manifested in the narrowing of procedural guarantees of the right to protection of persons whose criminal cases are investigated in the form of an inquiry; in the forced violation of the rule of law by interrogators during investigation of criminal cases when initiating a criminal case on a non-obvious crime; in delaying proceedings in criminal cases initiated and investigated initially by interrogators and then for a number of reasons referred to investigators for further investigation, etc. These problems cannot be solved by constantly improving the legal regulation of the procedural form of inquiry. The written above testifies futility of the procedural form of inquiry, justifies the necessity of its elimination from the Russian criminal proceedings as an independent form of investigation.