Participant to the Criminal Proceedings on the Side of Defence in the Criminal Proceedings of the Russian Federation
Participant to the Criminal Proceedings on the Side of Defence in the Criminal Proceedings of the Russian Federation

Summary/Abstract: The main characteristics of the adversarial type of criminal proceedings in the Russian Federation are: a clear separation and demarcation of the parties in the criminal prosecution, defence and resolution of the criminal case and the procedural equality of the prosecution and defence. At the same time, the court is an arbiter in the dispute between the parties, creating the necessary conditions for the parties to perform their procedural obligations and exercise the rights that they are entitled to. As a rule, there are no pretrial proceedings and the court is relieved of the procedural functions of the parties. Secondary (derived) typical characteristics of adversarial proceedings are publicity, orality and directness. The search process or investigative proceedings, unlike the adversarial one, is completely permeated with a public (official) beginning. Its main characteristics are: the merging of the functions of the prosecution and the resolution of the crime into one person (organ); the defence function is essentially absent; the suspect is not perceived as a subject, but as a powerless object of criminal procedural activity, and practically has no procedural rights and possibility to compete with the victim; the court proceedings are preceded by a search (investigation). This paper analyses all the participants to the criminal proceedings on the side of defence (suspect and accused, defence attorney and civil defendant).

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