Issues of the Theory of Criminal Procedure Agreements: The Object and Subject of the Agreement

Introduction: despite the rather long practice of concluding and implementing pre-trial cooperation agreements, the criminal procedure theory has not developed a unified approach to understanding what the object and subject of this type of criminal procedure agreement are. Such uncertainty is an objective obstacle to the development of new models of procedural contracts. The purpose of the study is to find out what obligations the parties assume concerning the conclusion of a pre-trial cooperation agreement, as well as what actions the prosecutor should perform in fulfillment of his contractual obligations. Methods: for this purpose, the general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, the systematic approach, the method of legal interpretation, and the logical-legal method were used. The dialectical method served as the methodological framework. As a result of the research, it is found out that the criminal charge cannot be the subject of a procedural agreement between the parties to the proceedings; the only duty of the prosecutor, which he must fulfill in case of proper cooperation during the investigation by the accused, is to send the criminal case to court with the submission provided for in Part 1 of Art. 317.5 of the CPC RF. Conclusions: a change in the criminal charge during the investigation of a criminal case should not entail a renegotiation of the pre-trial cooperation agreement; the consent to the criminal charge is not a prerequisite for concluding an agreement; the development of contractual relations in criminal proceedings primarily involves the search for new objects about which the parties could enter into agreements.