The essence and goals of the defense in the criminal procedure

Abstract

The article investigates questions about the essence of criminal defense, its goals and properties. The authors note that, for all its specifi city, criminal procedural protection has a number of properties inherent in any type of defensive activity, but at the same time its independence is the defi ning property of protection in criminal procedure. The article is devoted to the problems of scientifi c and legislative refl ection of the defense in the criminal procedure. Comparing the history of legal regulation of the defense in criminal proceedings in various European states, the authors come to the conclusion on the lack of the consistent and structural approach in those legislative attempts. At the same time, the article tries to classify scientifi c approaches to the goals and properties of the criminal defense. Based on the analysis of the current legislation, as well as literature, fi ve fundamental properties of the criminal defense (independence, aleatory, proficiency, sub legislative character, efficiency) are identified.