STAGES OF CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS: BASIS FOR DIVISION AND FEATURES

Abstract

According to the authors, the basis for the division of criminal proceedings into stages, in the historical sense, was the need to get rid of inquisitorial methods of criminal proceedings by ensuring the objectivity of establishing the circumstances in criminal proceedings by involving different subjects of proceedings in such proceedings at certain stages of the proceedings and the need implementation of step-by-step control over the specified parts of the proceedings in order to eliminate possible violations of the law and/or possible abuses or neglect of the legal rights or interests of the persons involved in the proceedings. It has been proven that the conduct of criminal proceedings in stages with the involvement of another subject at each stage, which carries out the proceedings, is a guarantee of a more objective establishment of the circumstances of a criminal offense in comparison with the conduct of such proceedings by one subject. The authors consider the involvement of different subjects belonging to different departments or different law enforcement agencies with different functions to be positive at certain stages of criminal proceedings, which provides a certain objectivity in establishing the circumstances of a criminal offense. The authors consider the introduction of staged construction of criminal proceedings as a significant achievement of the theory of the criminal process and its practice. According to the authors, one should add to the signs of the stage of criminal proceedings the sign of «introduction at each stage of the principle of adversarial parties».