Is the Prosecutor under the Current Criminal Procedure Code: Prosecutor or Supervisor?

Abstract

Turbulent changes in legislation in recent years have laid fertile ground for scientists. Sometimes, for some time, laws governing criminal procedural relations are passed so quickly and strangely that they only harm the interests of the state and complicate the work of the prosecutor-procedural manager during the investigation of criminal proceedings. In this regard, the question of the role and place of the prosecutor in the mechanism of ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens in the criminal proceedings, the implementation of its functions and powers remains open. This is confirmed by the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine adopted in July 2016, which are still not implemented in other laws of Ukraine four years later. The updated status of the prosecutor enshrined in the Basic Law of Ukraine creates a new basis for the procedural tactics of investigating criminal proceedings. In view of the above, it is necessary to investigate the new legislation, empirical results and the practical component of the prosecutor’s activities. The paper considers the functional algorithm of actions of the prosecutor-procedural manager on the investigation of criminal offenses. The purpose of the article is to characterize the features of the procedural status of the prosecutor as a subject of criminal proceedings in the investigation of crimes, the component of this activity as a supervisor or prosecutor in criminal proceedings, comparing such powers and determining the nature of such activities by their number in law. Methodology. To achieve this goal, the formal-logical method, system-structural, comparative-legal, and statistical methods are used. Scientific novelty. By analyzing the provisions of recent changes in legislation and judicial and prosecutorial practice, the main direction of the prosecutor’s work as a prosecutor in criminal proceedings has been established. Attention is paid to the specifics of the prosecutor’s procedural tactics at the stage of pre-trial investigation and in court, its focus on the reasonable involvement of a person who has committed a criminal offense in order to pass a court conviction. Conclusions. The role and functional content of the criminal procedural activity of the prosecutor in the Ukrainian judiciary are established. At present, he is primarily a prosecutor, with a small number of supervisory powers, which is why the prosecutor’s supervisory functions are defined as secondary. At the same time, the prosecutor is the determining and main participant in the criminal proceedings, as he acts at all its stages from the beginning of the criminal proceedings to its end.

Keywords: prosecutor; criminal procedural activity; prosecutor; public prosecution; prosecutorial supervision; procedural management.