In the present study, the authors draw attention to the impact and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on criminal proceedings. The authors consider what consequences the pandemic had on the work of the courts, the investigation officers, as well as the authorities executing the court decision on the detention of accused persons. Among the unfavourable consequences, which influenced the criminal proceedings, are the violation of the accused's right to attorney; the impossibility to provide the accused with qualified legal assistance due to the self-isolation of lawyers and quarantine measures prohibiting their entry into the pretrial detention centers; the refusal of investigation officers to postpone the investigative actions because of lawyer's default due to self-isolation; postponement of court proceedings and the extension of the term of the criminal trials and others. The authors suggest ways to solve the problem in case of recurrent situation, in particular, they propose to provide for provisions at the legislative level to regulate criminal proceedings in the conditions of pandemic, noting a multifaceted approach to solving the problem in order to balance the rights and legitimate interests of the accused and to comply with the norms of criminal procedure legislation. It is necessary to change the attitude towards the pretrial detention as a preventive measure and choose other alternative preventive measures in the context of a pandemic in order to unload the pretrial detention centers and protect the health of both the employees of the pretrial detention center and the persons detained there. Besides, it is necessary to convert criminal proceedings into electronic format and implement modern digital technologies, which allow to limit communication between participants of criminal proceedings as much as possible and provide exchange of procedural documents within the framework of electronic document circulation.
Along with total ordering of the criminal trial general in Russia, special, summary criminal procedures are applied. At present, special criminal justice is the main form of criminal litigation, as more than half of criminal cases are considered on the merits using these procedures. They are used to save time and labor of parties to a criminal proceeding, to involve people into organized groups, criminal communities in the investigation of crimes. In the present study, the authors consider the special procedure for the trial at the conclusion of the pre-trial cooperation agreement, attention is paid to the importance of the pre-trial cooperation agreement for the criminal process, consider its characteristics, as well as the legal precedents. Pre-trial cooperation agreement has some similarities with the guilty plea (plea bargaining), widely used in law enforcement practice of the United States. The authors believe that the basis of these procedures is a confession of guilt by the suspect (accused), which is sufficient for his conviction, as well as certain advantages for the accused who admitted guilt. The problems of using the pre-trial cooperation agreement in law enforcement practice are the possibility of false denunciations by a person who has concluded a pre-trial cooperation agreement, the use of illegal methods of investigation, the vulnerability of the rights of the victim. Other negative and positive aspects of application of the pretrial cooperation agreement are considered.
ISMGE 2020 II International Scientific and Practical Conference "Individual and Society in the Modern Geopolitical Environment" ELEMENTS OF E-JUSTICE IN RUSSIAN CIVIL PROCEDURE: REALITIES AND TRENDS Sergey Abramitov (a)*, Мarina Dneprovskaya (b), Diana Stepanenko (c) *Corresponding author
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