Unexpected discoveries in comparative legal studies of criminal proceedings

Abstract

Comparative legal studies have always been a significant part of scientific research of the problems of criminal procedure.At present, comparative studiesof criminal procedure have become more demanded because of the need of constant international exchange of legislative and law enforcement experience. In this regard, the requirements for the quality of these studies are becoming higher.Currently, in scientific researches are usually used legislative sources only in the original language.During the comparative analysis not only the provisions of normative legal acts in their general legal meaning are compared, but also specific original terms in accordance with the context.A comprehensive legal and linguistic analysis of legislative provisions used in different national legal systems allows us to identify new meanings in the compared laws, assess the effectiveness of legal regulation of similar public relations in different states, consciously adopt or refuse foreign legislative experience.The author analyzes the published comparative studieson the problems of choosing preventive measures in the criminal process of the Swiss Confederation, the witness immunity ofprofessional secrecy keeper and the reform of theadvocacy in the Federal Republic of Germany. Based on the results of the analysis, the author claims that an accurate translation of specific legislative terms used in these states allows us to more fully reveal the meaning of regulatory legal prescriptions and to avoid attempts to fit the legal concepts familiar to Russian and Russian-speaking lawyers into a foreign regulatory scope.In this context, the problems of the theory and practice of the Russian criminal process concerning detention in pre-trial and judicialcriminal proceedings, witness immunity of alawyer, the role of a lawyer in the administration of justice are considered.