Criminal and criminal procedural law in contemporary Russia. Vectors of modernization

   In 2021 International Relations published the following monograph: Criminal prosecution as a way of settling economic disputes: what is wrong with the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code. In 2022 the second part of this work was published: Criminal prosecution as way of settling economic disputes. Part II. Criminal proceedings in arbitration courts: prerequisites and implementation. This work examines questions on criminal and criminal procedural law in a broader context. The aim of the study is to expose the ‘sore points’ in the corresponding legal regulations and determine how to rectify them. This work shows that many of the Criminal Code (CC) and Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) regulations of the Russian Federation (RF) openly ignore the presumption of innocence and droves of people who have not admitted their guilt in court are called perpetrators of crimes. It is noted that the CPC of the RF does not secure the effective protection of rights of people involved in a criminal case. Particular attention is paid to the ‘investigation ad infinitum’ of the criminal case, the timeline of which is only restricted by the statute of limitations, and only on the condition that the defendant is not against the termination of the criminal case. This infringes the interests of third parties whose rights continue to be restricted while the case has not concluded. The monograph denotes the main vectors of modernization for the corresponding legislation. It proves the need for the following: to bring the CC and CPC regulations in line with the presumption of innocence and, to this end, to replace the institute of exemption from criminal liability with the institute of eliminating criminal liability; to change the categorization of crimes by separating crimes of an economic character and attributing them, regardless of the magnitude of punishment that can be imposed on them, to crimes not higher than average gravity; the abolishment of the institute of criminal prosecution; exemptions made to continue a case on the basis of objection from the accused against the termination of a criminal case and giving the accused the right to demand the termination of a criminal case according to different legal grounds, which includes the right to rehabilitation; the increase in numbers of such grounds; the establishment of new grounds to terminate a criminal case connected to not completing the investigation in the designated timeline; simplifying the general procedure for the termination of criminal cases by eliminating the necessity to receive the agreement of the head of the investigative authority and prosecutor to terminate the criminal case, which would be superfluous with the presence of judicial oversight over the legality of terminating a criminal case; the decriminalization or elimination of qualifying attributes of a number of crimes by indexing the outdated significance of large and very large scale, significant, large and very large-scale damage; the extensive borrowing of regulations in the CPC RF from the Arbitration Procedure Code RF, which will allow to modernize criminal proceedings. The book also shows the necessity to bring many detailed amendments to the CC and CPC RF which would remove the faults in the relevant legal regulations.

  This work is aimed at a wide circle of readers. It can be used as a textbook for teachers and students at law universities.