Retrospective of the Emergence and Development of Departmental Procedural Control as an Element of the Mechanism for Correcting Investigative Errors. Case Study of the Activities of Revolutionary Tribunals in 1917–1922

Abstract

Development in 1960–1990 of departmental procedural control as the theory of criminal procedure understand it now would have been impossible without the tribunal justice in 1917–1922. The use of the historical legal method made it possible to analyze the dynamics of the functions of revolutionary tribunals with general competence, to study their relationships with emergency commissions and other bodies of inquiry and preliminary investigation. The results of the study showed that in 1917–1922 the tribunals not only administered justice for the most serious crimes, but also performed the function of identifying investigative errors, for which they were endowed with the appropriate procedural powers. The author draws conclusions about the degree of effectiveness of the implementation of these powers in the conditions of permanent reform of tribunal justice based on a study of statistical data from the mentioned period. An analysis of the normative legal acts that regulated the activities of revolutionary tribunals allows us to say that in 1917–1922 departmental procedural control was not differentiated and its development was inseparable from the evolution of judicial and departmental control, and later — prosecutorial supervision.