The Role of the Prosecutor in the Prevention and Elimination of Investigative Errors: Russian and German Experience

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the prevention, identification and correction of mistakes during the preliminary criminal investigation because establishing the offence and all the circumstances that constitute evidence forms the basis for a just verdict, helps prevent crimes against justice and reach other goals of punishment. The authors present the conceptual and normative background for the model of permanent prosecutors supervision as the dominant control and supervision activity in the pre-trial criminal proceedings that allows to effectively implement the strategies of criminal prosecution and protection of human rights. This model establishes the authority of the prosecutor for the procedural management of the criminal prosecution in the criminal process as a significant supervision authority. The tasks of identifying, correcting and preventing (not making) mistakes in pre-trial investigations are equally urgent in Russia and in Germany. Although the Criminal Procedure Code of Germany gives the prosecutors office the leading role in the investigation, in practice the investigation is more often carried out by the police while the role of the prosecutor is reduced to summarizing the results of the police investigation and making the final decisions. At the same time, the prosecutors office has considerable powers of discretion regarding the initiation or non-initiation of criminal prosecution, the prosecutor uses his/her own discretion to determine the procedure and method of investigation. It is important to examine some aspects of the prosecutors role in German criminal court proceedings within the framework of correcting investigation mistakes in Russian criminal process. The model of prosecutors supervision presented in the paper does not preclude the legislative provisions for the transfer of some authority of the court to the prosecutor at the pre-trial stages of the criminal process. This model of prosecutors supervision allows timely and effective identification, correction and prevention of investigation mistakes at the pre-trial stages of criminal court proceedings.