Priorities of Judicial Review of Complaints as a Component of the Judicial Protection Mechanism for Citizens’ Rights in Pre-Trial Criminal Proceedings

Based on the analysis of contemporary scholarly approaches to defining the functional purpose of first-instance courts in ensuring judicial protection of citizens’ rights during pre-trial criminal proceedings (also referred to as judicial oversight), this paper substantiates the classification of judicial review as an independent function of the court. An integral part of judicial review is the consideration of complaints in accordance with Articles 125 and 125.1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The results of the study of judicial statistics revealed low efficiency of judicial review of complaints, due to the lack of correlation between the legal regulation of this institution and law enforcement. Given the expanding role of courts in pre-trial proceedings while judicial resources remain limited and judges must balance case adjudication with review functions, the paper proposes establishing priorities for the judicial review of complaints to ensure the proper functioning of the judicial protection mechanism. To prevent judicial review from developing along an extensive path and duplicating/replacing the powers of investigative supervisors and prosecutors before the appearance of investigative judges in criminal proceedings, it is necessary to first narrow the scope of judicial discretion and focus on the rightsprotective aspect of judicial review of complaints. When considering complaints, the court must act as a kind of compensatory mechanism, pointing out the shortcomings of departmental control and prosecutorial supervision, through which the protection/restoration of the rights of citizens violated by a crime/criminal prosecution must be ensured. Addressing these challenges will require improving the quality of regulatory frameworks, limiting judicial review to complaints about actual violations that have already been examined by investigative supervisors and prosecutors, reducing the scope of judicial interference in the procedural actions of investigators and prosecutors, and developing new evaluation criteria for judicial complaint review that reflect the actual state of citizens’ legal protection during criminal case initiation and investigation.