Development of the Institute of Advocacy and the Institute of Defense by the Court Reform of 1864

The current Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is not simply a result of modern law making, its provisions have certain patterns of origin and continuity with the previously used legislation. From this point of view, the pre-revolutionary period in Russia is of particular importance, namely, the reforms of Alexander II, the change of the judicial system and the adoption of judicial charters, specifically, the Statute of Criminal Procedure of 1864, which played an important role in consolidating the legal status of the defense lawyer in criminal proceedings, while many provisions of the Statute became direct prototypes for the current legislation. It is of great scientific interest to compare the provisions of the Statute of Criminal Procedure of 1864 and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation with the purpose of historical analysis, to identify the continuity of the provisions of the Statute and to point out opportunities for further development of the norms of the current criminal procedure law in order to improve it. The author concludes that giving a legal form to the institute of advocacy and legally recognizing the participation of a defense lawyer in criminal proceedings in order to ensure the right of the accused to defense became possible not only in connection with the general provisions of the judicial reform of 1864, but also through such significant changes in criminal proceedings as the introduction of adversarial principles.