The role of the judiciary in the transformation of the ratio of public and private interests in criminal proceedings in Russia

Abstract

The article analyzes the genesis, current state and prospects in the legal regulation of the ratio of public and private principles in criminal proceedings. The author substantiates that, despite the fact that criminal procedural activity has a public character, nevertheless, this activity is intended primarily to protect the private interests’ victims of crimes and persons subjected to criminal prosecution, as follows from Part 1 of Article 6 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The historical pattern of the development of Russian statehood indicates an inevitable conflict between by the state in the person of its officials carrying out criminal prosecution, and by a person in such a public sphere of legal relations as criminal proceedings. The problem of the correlation of public and private interests needs serious research. The author comes to the conclusion that the legislator is currently making successful attempts to expand the dispositive principles in criminal proceedings by creating the necessary conditions for the parties to exercise the rights granted to them to defend their legitimate interests during criminal proceedings. The result of theoretical studies of this problem is also seen as the improvement of the legal regulation of judicial activity, due to the need to strengthen the judiciary as an important factor, influencing the provision of the parties with real and equal rights to participate in the resolution of legal issues, disputes or conflicts in criminal proceedings, for which it is necessary to endow the court with a broader set of decision-making powers that guarantee the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms, as well as their equality before the law and the court. In this regard, the article considers the problem of filling public criminal procedural activity with dispositive principles through the prism of strengthening the judiciary.