On the Necessity of Scientific Development and Use of the Term «Criminal Proceedings» in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation

The author examines the conceptual framework used for describing, at the highest level of generality, Russian criminal process as proceedings of a mixed (Romano-Germanic) type. Based on the historical analysis of the legislative definition of the concept «criminal process» during the pre-revolutionary and the Soviet periods, it is noted that the criminal procedure activity was normatively defined through two equivalent categories — «court proceedings» and «proceedings», which described it entirely, including the pre-trial and trial stages. The Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation gave the term «criminal proceedings» a wider definition compared to the one provided in the Constitution of the Russian Federation by adding the pre-trial stages. Such an approach was driven by the political climate of the 1990s when the current Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation was being developed. As it is well-known, at the time the dominant idea was to get rid of the Soviet model of criminal procedure activities and declare the adversarial principle to be the basis for creating the new Russian criminal process. However, this position contradicts the historically established mixed form of Russian criminal process of a Romano-Germanic type with a formalized investigative pre-trial stage and competitive court stages. Thus, according to the constitutional requirements, the current contents of the term «court proceedings» consist in the court resolution of any legal dispute (civil, arbitration, administrative, criminal) in an adversarial process with equal parties. Within such an interpretation, this concept does not include the pre-trial stage of the criminal process and, consequently, cannot describe the entirety of the criminal procedure work. Due to this, it is necessary to have another category that is, first, not connected with the requirement of the adversarial principle and, second, encompasses the whole criminal process. Based on the formal legal analysis of Russian criminal procedure legislation, the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the criminal procedure doctrine, it is suggested that the concept «criminal proceedings» should be used as such. As result of the conducted research, it is suggested that the corresponding changes should be made in the General Part of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.