The head of the prosecutor's office as a subject of proving

Abstract

The article is devoted to the research of the participation in the proving of the head of the prosecutor's office, who is the Prosecutor General, the head of the regional prosecutor's office, the head of the district prosecutor's office and their first deputies and deputies acting within their competence. Despite the fact that the head of the prosecutor's office is almost never mentioned separately in doctrinal definitions and classifications of subjects of evidence, he is an independent participant in criminal proceedings and a subject of proving. The head of the prosecutor's office in the classification of subjects of proving refers to the group of subjects who are assigned the duty and burden of proof in the pre­trial investigation.
 The powers of the head of the prosecutor's office, which are related to the proving, include: 1) the determination of the appropriate subject of procedural guidance; 2) ensuring the effectiveness of the pre-trial investigation in the aspect of collecting of evidence; 3) initiation of criminal proceedings and notification of suspicion of criminal proceedings against certain categories of persons (which is a necessary condition for the admissibility of all evidence that will be collected and examined in criminal proceedings); 4) implementation of "delegated" powers under the martial law.
 The analysis of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and the positions of the Supreme Court regarding the problematic issues of the implementation of the powers of the head of the prosecutor's office leads to the conclusions that: the head of the prosecutor's office can be a member of the group of prosecutors; there is no imperative to include the head of the prosecutor's office in order to use the powers under Chapter 37 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in the group of prosecutors, however, his inclusion in such a group also does not contradict the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. When the head of the prosecutor's office is included in the group of prosecutors, the question arises of the lack of impartiality in the powers specifically as the head of the prosecutor's office and the identification of a higher-level prosecutor for the purposes of Art. 308 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.