The Institute of Urgent Investigative Actions Requires Urgent Rethinking

Abstract

New challenges to the society and the state, posed by criminality and manifested through a sharp increase in the number of grave and very grave crimes enhance the relevance of potentially effective legal instruments which are, as a rule, of inter-sectorial legal nature. They include urgent investigative actions, which for over 60 years have been considered an institute of the preliminary stage of investigation, and which flourished at a time when inquiry bodies did not meet any obstacles in initiating criminal cases for the crimes requiring a preliminary investigation. The authors describe the specifics of the institute of urgent investigatory actions and its difference from the procedural constructs that provide for investigatory actions in «emergency» cases. They analyze research publications, and use them to work out suggestions on improving the legal regulation of urgent investigatory actions. The authors also prove that the theoretical basis of the institute under analysis is isolated from the practice of investigating and solving crimes, it has become totally abstract and without any links to the actual practice. The practice of urgent investigatory actions carried out by the customs’ offices as a body of inquiry is summarized. Contrary to the opinion, popular among researchers, that the norms regulating the initiation of criminal cases by bodies of inquiry are not demanded in practice, the authors present statistical data illustrating the opposite situation. Using the specific examples of criminal cases, they demonstrate the opportunities for using the operative information collected by the body of inquiry within the institute of urgent investigatory actions to identify a certain person as a culprit in the crime. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the grounds and causes for initiating a criminal case established as a result of investigative search activities. The authors also remind us about the positive Soviet experience of conducting inquiries for the cases that demand a preliminary investigation. They present recommendations on the interaction between the bodies of inquiry and the prosecutor’s office regarding the applicability of the rules of investigative jurisdiction over criminal cases. They offer a complex operative-search and criminal procedure understanding of the phenomenon «urgent investigatory actions».