Right of access to justice as a principle of criminal process

Abstract

This article analyzes the controversial issues of attributing the right of access to justice to the principles of criminal process. The author meticulously examines the origin of the right of access to justice in the Article 52 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The subject of this research is the norms of Russian and foreign legislation regulating the right of access to justice in criminal process. The object is the legal relations emerging in implementation of the right of access to justice. The article explores regulation of the right of access to justice in legislation of the Russian Federation and CIS member-states. It is demonstrated that the right of access to justice possesses certain characteristics that allow attributing it to the principles of criminal process: it represents an objective legal category that reflects the dominant in society political, legal and ethical ideas, and is most common legal provision in relation to other norms of law. A conclusion is substantiated that absence of the right of access to justice in criminal procedural legislation is a unique case of a gap in the principle of law.