ORIGIN OF PUBLIC CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AS ONE OF BACKGROUND FOR ESTABLISHMENT PROSECUTOR POSITION IN RUSSIA

Abstract

The article analyzes the most ancient legislative acts of the Old Russian State, which regulate the procedure for carrying out criminal proceedings and, in particular, the procedure for initiating and conducting criminal prosecutions by private and public officials. To identify signs of the prosecutor’s office origin and its activities in criminal matters, it is necessary to analyze how the criminal prosecution was carried out before the emergence of the prosecutor’s position in the Russian legal system. This allows you to identify patterns associated with the evolution of the role of the prosecutor in the criminal process. The author considers the reasons for the emergence in the domestic legal system of public principles of criminal prosecution in connection with the gradual transition from the accusatory to the search model of the criminal process. Since the inception of statehood, the government has tried to establish special procedures and rules to prosecute those responsible for state crimes and crimes against public safety. Russkaya Pravda, as the first domestic code of laws, established the procedure for the search for the person who committed a crime, his property stolen and the form of this activity. The article analyzes the criminal procedural powers of central and local state bodies and officials of the Novgorod and Pskov veche republics, the Moscow kingdom, related to the prosecution of crimes, which can be correlated with the procedural figure of the state prosecutor. The search process is replaced by the indictment, and the initiation of criminal prosecution of persons who committed serious crimes is allowed in the absence of the plaintiff. The author attempts to identify the pattern between the emergence and development of public criminal prosecution and the establishment of the post of a prosecutor in the Russian Empire in the 18th century.

Keywords: powers of the prosecutor; legal system of the Novgorod Veche Republic; wanted type of criminal trial; criminal prosecution; criminal proceedings in the Old Russian state.

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Author

Georgiy K. Zhukov – Deputy Head of the Criminal Division, Public Prosecutor of Novgorod Region, Veliky Novgorod, Russia; External Doctoral Candidate, Saint Petersburg Law Institute (branch) of the Procuracy University of the Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg, Russia. E-mail: Hagen5@yandex.ru.

For citation:
Zhukov G.K. Origin of Public Criminal Prosecution as One of Background for Establishment Prosecutor Position in Russia // BENEFICIUM. 2020. No. 1 (34). pp. 57-64. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.34680/BENEFICIUM.2020.1(34).57-64.