Annotation

According to Article 123 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, judicial proceedings in the country must be conducted based on the principles of adversarial proceedings and equality of the parties, which applies to the entire criminal process, including pre-trial investigation. For-mally, Russian criminal procedure recognizes the prosecutor and investigator as the prosecution side, opposed by the defense, aligning with the classical model of adversarial process. However, in the pre-trial investigation phase, the judicial arbiter is effectively absent: the investigative body holds the key role, making decisions, applying coercive measures, and collecting evidence largely on its own, thus possessing jurisdictional powers. This renders adversarial proceedings during the pre-trial stage illusory, with prosecutorial motivation dominating. This imbalance is worsened by the fact that the investigative body’s performance is evaluated based on the number of cases sent to court, encouraging a prosecutorial bias and lack of objective control at that stage. This situation poses serious risks to the rights of the accused and contradicts international standards of criminal procedure. Unlike Russia, in most legal systems worldwide, including France, the functions of prosecution, investigation, and judicial decision-making are separated to ensure impartiality and objectivity—e.g., in France, the investigative judge, an independent judicial officer, conducts the pre-trial investigation. Thus, the Russian model of pre-trial investigation violates the constitutional principle of adversarial proceedings, since key powers are concentrated in the prosecution organs, depriving the criminal procedure of equality and objectivity, creating risks for the rights and free-doms of accused persons. Systemic reforms are necessary to separate prosecution and investiga-tion functions and introduce independent judicial and supervisory bodies in the pre-trial phase.