The Contribution of Anatoly Fedorovich Koni to the Development of the Criminal Process at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Abstract

Based on a set of archival materials, the article shows the evolution of the views of the famous Russian lawyer Anatoly Fedorovich Koni in the 1900-1910’s on the essence and principles of the criminal process. Koni developed his creative potential in three aspects: practical, theoretical and legislative. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the theoretical and legislative activities of the senator came to the fore. As a practical lawyer, he actively participated in the drafting of comments on the Charter of criminal proceedings (where he gave a scientific assessment of the final debate in court, the accusatory speech of the prosecutor, the private prosecution, the defense speech of the lawyer, the conclusion of the prosecutor in cassation proceedings, etc.). As a participant in the legislative process, Koni defended in the State Council (in the early 1910s) bills aimed at improving procedural law. He defended the preservation of the rite of trial, insisted on changing the clarification to jurors of the issue of punishment for the accused, limiting the powers of the justice of the peace, etc. The role of the senator was especially active in 1917, when, as chairman of the subcommittee to change the Charter of Criminal Procedure, Koni had a decisive influence to change the judicial process in the Russian Republic. A huge contribution to the development of the foundations of criminal justice was made by the work of Anatoly Fedorovich – Judicial Ethics. In it, he set a high ethical and legal standard of conduct for all participants in the process. The study analyzes in detail those legal institutions of the criminal process that have become the object of study by the senator. Including the principles of procedural law, the procedure for considering cases of crimes of the press, the procedure for the rite of passage to court, the procedure for explaining to jurors the consequences of their sentence, the status of a private attorney, the status of a prosecutor in court, etc. The senator's ideas about the evolution of procedural norms are considered separately. The purpose of this work is to establish the contribution of A.F. Koni in the development of criminal justice through his theoretical and legislative activities. In preparing the publication, the problem-chronological method, as well as the historical method, were used.