On the implementation of the law enforcement function of the state in criminal procedure

The paper presents the author’s vision of the organization of balanced pre-trial proceedings based on the functional delineation of the activities of state authorities ensuring the fulfillment of public-law duties of the state in criminal procedure. Analyzing the activities of bodies implementing criminal intelligence activities, preliminary investigation bodies and the prosecutor in pre-trial proceedings, the author judges from the focus of their activities on ensuring the interests of the state in the fight against crime using various forms of state-authority activities – solving crimes, investigating crimes and prosecuting guilty persons. The interaction of state bodies when solving and investigating crimes and their general focus on identifying the facts and circumstances of the committed act allowed evaluating critically the current norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, which exclude criminal intelligence activities and their results from the subject of criminal procedural regulation, and substantiating the conclusion on the advisability of combining these types of activities in one criminal procedural function – the function of solution and investigation. The absence of legal regulation of the prosecutor’s activities in carrying out criminal prosecution in pre-trial proceedings and the absence of legal norms regulating the procedure for forming and bringing state charges allowed substantiating the conclusion about the need for functional separation of criminal prosecution as an independent area of activity – the criminal prosecution function. Based on the obtained results, the author proposed a legal model for the implementation of law-enforcement criminal procedural functions in pre-trial proceedings, including: 1) the function of solving and investigating crimes combining two types of state-authority activities – solving crimes by bodies performing criminal intelligence activities and investigating crimes by preliminary investigation bodies, with the latter playing the leading role; 2) the function of criminal prosecution carried out by the prosecutor through the formation and bringing of state charges and the subsequent initiation of judicial proceedings in a criminal case. Based on the presented classification of law enforcement functions of criminal procedural activities, the author concluded about the need for legislative restructuring of the pre-trial part of the criminal procedure.