Comparative Analysis of Criminal Pretrial Procedures in Anglo-Saxon and Continental Legal Systems
Lutsenko P.A. Comparative analysis of criminal pretrial procedures in Anglo-Saxon and continental legal systems. Penitentiary Science, 2023, vol. 17, no. 1 (61), pp. 62–71. doi: 10.46741/2686-9764.2023.61.1.007
The article is devoted to the study of foreign experience in the legal regulation of pretrial procedures in criminal cases, as well as the analysis of the possibility of implementing the most effective forms of judicial control over the legality of the preliminary investigation in the Russian criminal procedure legislation. Purpose: based on a comparative legal analysis of the regulation of criminal pretrial procedures, to determine ways to further reform the stage of preliminary hearing of a criminal case in the Russian criminal procedure legislation. Methods: dialectical method of cognition, as well as general theoretical methods based on it: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, etc. The validity of the conclusions and recommendations contained in the article is ensured by the complex application of general and private scientific methods: historical, logical, comparative legal, statistical, sociological and others. Results: in the continental and Anglo-Saxon systems of law, with the difference in the forms of judicial activity on committal for trial, the legislator determines judicial verification of the legality of the preliminary investigation, as well as the validity of charges against the person, as the main tasks to be solved at this stage of criminal proceedings. Legalization of these tasks is carried out through the subject and limits of the control activity of the court, which are expressed either in the procedural form of trial, or in the scope of the powers of the court at this stage. Conclusions: in the Anglo-American and continental legal systems, there are two models of committal for trial: 1) by criminal justice bodies at the stage of completion of pre-trial proceedings, or by an independent judicial body to whose jurisdiction this criminal case is not assigned. In this model, the legislator explicitly states that the legality and validity of charges against a person, as well as the sufficiency of evidence for consideration of the criminal case on the merits, are subject to prosecutorial or judicial control; 2) by the court authorized to resolve the criminal case on the merits. Following the principle of the court’s independence when deciding on the guilt (innocence) of the defendant when making the final court decision, the legislator models the control judicial activity in a veiled manner, avoiding direct indication of the need to assess factual and procedural sides of the prosecution at the preliminary hearing stage. However, this goal can be traced in the scope of the powers granted to the court, which presuppose an assessment of the sufficiency of suspicion or materials for consideration of the case in court.
Keywords: Criminal proceedings; judicial control; preliminary hearing; powers of the court; prosecution; legality; prosecutor; defense party
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