Legal Certainty as the Basis of Criminal Proceedings: From Theory to Legislation Improvement

The paper is devoted to an important problem of legal certainty in the Russian criminal procedural law and the criminal procedural activity regulated by it in modern conditions. These are characterized, among other things, by the development of digital technologies, in the context of improving the legal (procedural) and organizational aspects of pre-trial and judicial proceedings. The author conducts an analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which considers the principle of legal certainty as inherent in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and as one of the fundamental manifestations of the rule of law. The author studies legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation showing that legal uncertainty leads to arbitrariness; the principle of legal certainty is generally recognized and general legal; the need to ensure the operation of the analyzed principle in the Russian legal system follows from the international obligations of the Russian Federation. It is emphasized that both legal norms and law enforcement practice must meet the principle of legal certainty. Given the legal nature of criminal proceedings, objectively characterized by the possibility of restricting the rights and legitimate interests of individuals and legal entities, the widespread use of measures of state coercion, the author, in order to increase the efficiency of the activities of the participants in criminal proceedings endowed with powers of authority and the guarantee of the rights and legitimate interests of other participants in criminal proceedings, proposes to make additions to Art. 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation as the first step towards solving the problems of legal certainty of pre-trial and judicial proceedings in criminal proceedings.

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