scholarly journals Legality and Validity of Property Seizure in the Investigation of a Criminal Case

Lex Russica ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 118-126
Author(s):  
O. A. Malysheva

The importance of the measure of procedural coercion in the form of seizure of property increases against the background of the high amount of damage caused by crimes, namely about 550 billion rubles annually. This measure of procedural coercion has a high security potential in order not only to satisfy claims in civil lawsuits, but also to recover a fine and other property claims provided for in Part 1 of Article 115 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. Investigators (interrogators) annually initiate the seizure of property about 40 thousand times. 90% of cases are a success. The application of this measure is accompanied by the restriction of the property rights of both natural and legal persons, including those who are not recognized as a civil defendant in a criminal case, in the first case, and the accused (suspect).The seizure of property in criminal procedure practice is accompanied by the need for the investigator to overcome a number of difficulties, which are caused, firstly, by the intersectoral nature of the regulation of this legal institution; secondly, by the presence of gaps in the regulation of relations arising in connection with the imposition of this arrest; thirdly, by the inconsistency of the objectives of proof to establish the nature and amount of damage caused by a crime and the implementation of security activities in a criminal case. This gives rise to numerous violations of the legality and validity of the seizure of property on the part of not only the investigator, but also the court, despite the expression of a number of positions of the ECHR on this issue, despite the explanations of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.The author concludes that without the release of the investigator as a subject of proof in a criminal case from performing an unusual function — providing compensation for property penalties in a criminal case — it is impossible to achieve the full legality and validity of the seizure of property.

Author(s):  
Boris B. Bulatov ◽  
◽  
Alexander S. Dezhnev ◽  

The article examines the normative legal basis of the grounds for canceling property seizure in pre-trial criminal proceedings. The problem of the legislator’s usage of evaluative categories in removing investigator’s, interrogator’s or court’s restrictions is also analyzed. The solution of this problem is made dependent on the implementation of public or private interests. Discussing these issues, the authors come to the conclusion that this sphere is neither presented nor analyzed in academic monographic works. This circumstance indicates the novelty of the study owing to the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the issue. The conclusion about the priority of public principles over private interests concerning matters which are not related to civil lawsuits is made on the grounds of empirical data and the analysis of legislative approaches. The contradictions of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation regulating the basis and procedure for canceling property seizure and the laws on bankruptcy are identified. The directions for improving the legal regulation of these issues are presented. The necessity of a multisectoral regulation of some aspects of law enforcement is inferred. The examination of private principles in canceling property seizure is connected with securing a civil lawsuit in criminal proceedings. The authors substantiate the existence of additional opportunities in making decisions in this field via the legal regime. This regime is also used in some other legal acts and may be put into practice in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. However, the imposed restrictions can be canceled on the basis of the decision by a person considering a criminal case. The authors note the incoherence of some provisions of Part 3 and Part 9 of Article 115 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. This incoherence is connected with different approaches to the view on public and private interests in decision making. The authors substantiate the necessity of a legal linking of grounds for canceling property seizure with the decision on imposing this resriction. The conclusion about the comprehensive order of property seizure is made in the final part of the article. It is also stated that this order does not contain distinct criteria of the legality of the decision. Certain parts of the criminal procedure laws should be corrected. Some ways to improve the field of legal regulation concerning the opportunity of canceling seizure are given.


Author(s):  
Sergey Grachev

The article considers the grounds for the emergence of the procedural status of a suspect in a criminal case. The rights and obligations of the specified person, including the right to protection are analyzed. Subject to the requirements of the criminal procedure code of the Russian Federation, legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation the conclusion about the necessity of legislative consolidation of the procedural status of the person whose rights and lawful interests are affected carried out in relation to proceedings for verification of a crime report in accordance with article 144 of the Criminal procedure code and equating it to the status of a suspect, since during the pre-investigation check he has the right to protection from the criminal prosecution actually carried out against him.


Author(s):  
E.V. Bolshakov ◽  
◽  
I.D. Nazarov ◽  

The subject of the research within the framework of the article is the criminal procedure institute for the detention of a person on suspicion of committing a crime. The legal nature of this institution is analyzed, and comments are given on the normative legal acts and judicial practice regulating the issues of detention. The theoretical basis of the research is based on the publications of the last two decades on this problem, in particular, reflecting the discussion of the process scientists S. A. Shafer, S. B. Rossinsky and A. A. Tarasov, the subject of which was the issue of the legal nature of a suspect detention in a criminal case. In the paper, the authors ask the following questions: What is the detention of a person on suspicion of committing a crime in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation? From what moment does the detained person acquire the status of a suspect? Is it possible to detain a person before initiating a criminal case? The study concludes that a person acquires the actual status of a suspect from the moment of direct detention, that is, before documenting this status and, as a result, before initiating a criminal case. Amendments to the articles of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation are proposed, and the authors` versions of the definitions of the concepts «detention of a suspect», «the moment of actual detention» and «pre-trial proceedings» are given.


Issues of Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-93
Author(s):  
S.M. Darovskikh ◽  
◽  
Z.V Makarova ◽  

The article is devoted to the issues of formulating the definition of such a criminal procedural concept as «procedural costs». Emphasizing the importance both for science and for law enforcement of clarity and clarity when formulating the definition of criminal procedural concepts, the authors point out that the formulation of this concept present in the current Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is far from being improved. Having studied the opinions on this issue of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, a number of procedural scholars, the authors propose their own version of the definition of the concept of «criminal procedural costs» with its allocation in a separate paragraph of Article 5 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.


Author(s):  
E.F. Tensina

The article reveals the nature of the claim of a private prosecution, which establishes the freedom to dispose of material and procedural rights. The forms of manifestation of dispositive principles in the material and procedural aspects in the course of criminal proceedings are determined. Taking into account the nature of the claim of a private prosecution, various models of proceedings in criminal cases of a private prosecution and the peculiarities of the implementation of the provisions of the criminal procedure principle of the presumption of innocence are considered. The author critically assesses the legal constructions that allow the application of a special procedure for making a court decision in criminal proceedings of a private prosecution if the accused agrees with the charge brought. In particular, taking into account the provisions of the principle of the presumption of innocence, it is concluded that it is inadmissible to apply Chapter 40 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation when considering a criminal case of a private prosecution if it is initiated by filing an application directly with a magistrate in the manner prescribed by Art. 318 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation or when investigating a criminal case of this category in the form of an abbreviated inquiry, regulated by Ch. 32.1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.


Author(s):  
Oksana V. Kachalova ◽  
◽  
Viкtor I. Kachalov ◽  

The aim of the article is to identify the meaning of the category “validity of the charge” in criminal proceedings and the scope of its application. After analyzing the content and legal essence of this category, as well as procedural situations in which it is necessary to establish the validity of the charge, the authors come to the following conclusions. Any coercive measures against suspects and accused persons can be applied only if there are serious grounds to assume that a person is involved in the commission of a crime since the restriction of the most important constitutional rights of citizens who, by virtue of the presumption of innocence, are innocent of committing a crime is possible only in exceptional cases. The validity of the charge (suspicion) assumes that a person is involved in the commission of a crime, as well as the fact of the criminal prosecution of this person. It is established if there is sufficient evidence that a person may have committed a crime (a person was caught committing a crime or immediately after it was committed; the victim or witnesses identified the person as the perpetrator of the crime; obvious traces of the crime were found on the person or their clothing, with them or in their house, etc.). The validity of the charge may be confirmed by a decision to initiate a criminal case and bring a person as an accused, by protocols of detention, interrogations of the accused, the victim, witnesses, and other materials. In the procedural sense, the conditions for establishing the validity of the charge differ significantly. When resolving the issue of the use of detention and other preventive measures, the validity of the charge is established within the framework of a court session in the conditions of adversariality with the participation of the parties. When giving the court permission to conduct investigative and other procedural actions in accordance with Article 165 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, to ensure the secrecy of the investigation, the issue is resolved in the absence of adversariality with the possible participation of only the prosecutor, the investigator, and the inquirer. The category “validity of the charge” is significant in legal terms in a criminal case with the special order of proceedings. A prerequisite for the court to consider a criminal case in a simplified procedure is the validity of the charge and its confirmation by the evidence collected in the case. The validity of the charge in the appointment of a trial in the special order provided for by Chapter 40 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is established by the court outside the court session in the absence of the parties. In any of the above situations, the court is responsible for establishing the validity of the charge since failure to establish it means that the decision made is unfounded.


Author(s):  
El'vira Mirgorodskaya

The purpose of this study was an attempt to theoretically understand the subject of judicial consideration of complaints against decisions, actions (inaction) of officials carrying out criminal prosecution. The research was carried out on the basis of comparative legal, formal logical, empirical, statistical methods. Judicial statistics for the year 2020 have been provided, and legislation has been studied from a historical and contemporary perspective, taking into account the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The problem is that, in practice, for about 20 years the courts have had difficulties in determining the subject of complaints, since neither in theory nor in practice a consensus has been developed on this issue. The Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation also does not contain a definition of the concept of «subject matter». The situation is aggravated by the presence of evaluative concepts in the text of the law, leading to a varied understanding of the subject of appeal by the courts, which leads to a violation of the constitutional rights of citizens at the pre-trial stages of criminal proceedings. In the article, taking into account the analysis of the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, legislation and the opinion of scientists, a recommendation was made to amend the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation to specify the subject of consideration of complaints in accordance with Art. 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in order to eliminate existing contradictions in practice and increase the level of protection of individual rights in pre-trial proceedings.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-200
Author(s):  
Natalia Kashtanova

The subject of paper deals with the legal nature of measures of criminal procedural compulsionin the form of seizure of property.Methodological basis of the article is based on general scientific dialectical methods of cognitionof objective reality of the legal processes and phenomena that allowed us to conduct anobjective assessment of the state of legislation and law enforcement practice in the proceduralaspects of the cancellation of the seizure of property in criminal proceedings of Russia.The results and scope of it’s application. It is submitted that the cancellation of the seizureof the property (or the individual limit) is allowed only on the grounds and in the mannerprescribed by the criminal procedure law of the Russian Federation. However, the studyfound serious contradictions in the application of the relevant law. In particular, cases inwhich the question of exemption of property from arrest (exclusion from the inventory),imposed in the criminal case was resolved in a civil procedure that, in the opinion of theauthor of the publication, is extremely unacceptable.On the stated issues topics analyzes opinions of scientists who say that the dispute aboutthe release of impounded property may be allowed in civil proceedings, including pendingresolution of the criminal case on the merits. The author strongly disagrees with this positionand supports those experts who argue that the filing of a claim for exemption of propertyfrom arrest (exclusion from the inventory) the reviewed judicial act of imposing of arrestwithout recognition per se invalid. In this regard, the author cites the legal position ofthe constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, from which clearly follows that of theright of everyone to judicial protection does not imply the possibility of choice of the citizenat its discretion, techniques and procedures of judicial protection, since the features of suchjudicial protection is defined in specific Federal laws.The author analyzes and appreciates Kazakhstan's experience of legal regulation of the permissibilityof filing a civil claim for exemption of property from seizure imposed in criminalproceedings. The author notes that the new civil procedural legislation of the Republic ofKazakhstan, which came into force from 01 January 2016, clearly captures that considerationin the civil proceedings are not subject to claims for exemption of property from seizureby the criminal prosecution body.Conclusions. Necessity of amendment to article 422 of the Civil Procedure Code of Russia:this article should not apply to cases of application of measures of criminal procedural compulsionin the form of seizure of property. Among other things, the author proposed additionsto part 9 of article 115 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Russia.


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