The decision to institute criminal proceedings is the main document that is issued on the basis of the result of the consideration of the statement of the crime committed. This document can be issued by an authorized person, as a rule, an investigator involved in the disclosure of a specific crime.
Execution of a decision to institute criminal proceedings
This document consists of:
- the introductory part, which indicates such data as the name of the document, the date and place of its issuance, initials and position of the person who issued the decision;
- narrative, which sets out in detail the basis and reason for the decision;
- the operative part, which contains such data as the decision to initiate the case, the article of the Criminal Code, according to which it will be instituted, information that the copy of this decision was sent to the prosecutor's office, the signature of the authorized person who issued the decision.
The final part of the document marks that the applicant (the person who wrote the application for the initiation of the case) and the defendant (the person suspected of committing a criminal offense) were notified of the institution of a criminal case for a specific crime.
In accordance with the legislation of Russia, a decision to institute criminal proceedings may be made after all actions have been agreed with the prosecutor. However, the country's Code of Criminal Procedure (Article 146) allows the investigator to make an independent decision on this matter before agreeing it with the prosecutor. The same applies to some urgent actions that are carried out as part of the investigation of a specific crime (inspection of the place of the event, conducting a forensic examination).
In the event that, based on the results of the survey of the victims and the search of the scene of the incident, a decision is made to conduct an investigation of this crime, the investigator must send an order to the prosecutor to urgently initiate a criminal case, the relevant protocols and materials for checking the crime scene are attached to it. Based on the data received, the prosecutor decides whether the case will be instituted. In order to make such a decision as soon as possible, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation provides for a shiftable 24-hour duty of prosecutors. Holidays and weekends are no exception.
As the decision to institute criminal proceedings is received, the prosecutor makes a decision:
- to immediately initiate proceedings on this crime. In this case, they put a signature on the document itself, indicating the exact date and time;
- about the refusal in this case;
- on the return of the investigation materials to the investigator for additional verification. In this case, the prosecutor may give additional instructions on the investigation, the term for their implementation is no more than five days.
An appeal against a decision to institute criminal proceedings may be carried out directly by a person accused of committing a crime, more precisely, by his lawyer. This right is provided for by Russian law as part of the protection of the suspect. The judgment may be appealed, as a rule, in an extrajudicial or judicial procedure. You should be aware that any persuasion (with or without threats and physical force) of law enforcement officers to be recognized as a crime is considered unlawful, since they violate the rights of a citizen of the Russian Federation stipulated by the constitution, and just as an illegal decision to institute criminal proceedings can be challenged in a court.