On the issue of abuse of law in Russian criminal proceedings

• Vereschagina A.V.

  A.V. Vereshchagina. Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. Vladivostok. Russia

Abstract. The object of the research is public relations regarding the abuse of law. The subject of the research is public relations regarding the abuse of law in criminal proceedings. The study was carried out in compliance with the principles of comprehensiveness, objectivity,
pluralism, historicism and the use of formal-logical and comparative methods, document analysis and empirical generalization. The starting point for the research purposes is the understanding of abuse of law as an action or inaction of a participant in criminal
proceedings that does not go beyond his status, but does not correspond to the goals and objectives of criminal proceedings. The prerequisites for abuse of law are defects in regulatory regulation, manifested in vague formulations, mutually exclusive provisions, the assumption
of discretion of the law enforcer and gaps in the law, as well as the internal readiness of a participant in criminal proceedings for behavior that outwardly corresponds to regulatory prescriptions, but in fact distorts the true meaning of the rules of law. The current criminal
procedural law contains a significant number of norms that allow abuse of the right not only to professional participants in criminal procedural legal relations, but also to other persons involved in the orbit of criminal proceedings. However, the motives of such behavior among
the subjects of abuse of the right are different: for the participants of the defense side, it is a way to alleviate the fate of the criminal prosecuted person; for the prosecution – the desire to minimize efforts to carry out criminal prosecution; for the court – a formal attitude to decision-
making. Regardless of the motives, abuse of the right has serious negative consequences: it negatively affects law enforcement, blurs the limits of permissible behavior, contributes to the formation of a disrespectful attitude towards the law and legal nihilism.
Keywords: criminal proceedings, abuse of law, language of criminal proceedings, familiarization with the materials of the criminal case, the right to defense, inadmissibility of evidence, setting a time limit for familiarization with the materials of the criminal case, presumption of
innocence.