Attorney Cancellation of the Investigator’s Decision to Initiate a Criminal Case

About the authors:

Alexander O. Beketov, Lecturer in Criminal Proceedings, Department of Criminal Trial, Omsk Academy of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia; beketov_ao@mail.ru

Sergey A. Tabakov, Cand. Sci. (Jur.), Senior Lecturer in Criminal Proceedings, Department of Criminal Trial, Omsk Academy of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia; prozess_oma@mail.ru

Abstract:

Ensuring the legality of preliminary investigation bodies’ activities at the stage of initiating a criminal case remains one of the most acute problems of criminal procedural science and practice. A prosecutor has enough power to enforce laws when receiving, registering and resolving crime reports. Criminal procedure law entitles them to evaluate the legitimacy and validity of this stage’s outcomes and undo them, which certainly allows them to eliminate the revealed violations and to prevent the infringement of the citizens’ rights and freedoms in the shortest time.

The decision of initiating a criminal case denotes the existence of crime signs in the act and determines the legitimacy of further proceedings, while its cancellation entail serious legal consequences — starting with recognition of the collected evidence as inadmissible, and finishing wiht recognition of the right to rehabilitation of persons subjected to the procedural coercion measures. The analysis of law enforcement practice demonstrates that prosecutors are not always justified when resorting to such exceptional measure as the cancellation of the investigator’s decision to initiate a criminal case.

The authors’ research concludes that the cancellation of the investigator’s decision to initiate a criminal case is only acceptable when further proceeding is not legitimate, e. g., when a criminal case is initiated by an unauthorized person, or when the decision may result in unlawful imposition of criminal liability or the recognition of evidence as inadmissible. In other cases, in deciding whether or not cancel the investigator’s decision, it is necessary to evaluate the materials of an already formed criminal case if there are grounds for its termination; should such arise, the decision of initiating a criminal case is not subject to cancellation.

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