The concept of a reason for initiating a criminal case includes data received by law enforcement bodies from various sources about a planned or already committed criminal offense. The law equates this information with the legal facts that oblige the investigator, the inquiry officer and the prosecutor, within the powers defined by the criminal procedure legislation, to consider these facts and determine their sufficiency for initiating a criminal case on the grounds of a crime.
Types of Occasions
According to the norms of Russian law, the following information serves as a reason for initiating a criminal case:
- a statement of a planned or already committed criminal offense;
- confession of the offender;
- reporting an impending criminal offense from other sources;
- a report of a crime that was received by law enforcement officials from other sources.
The latter two species are most often considered together as one reason to initiate criminal proceedings under the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation.
Statement of crime
The most common reason for a criminal case is a statement. It may be in written or oral form. A statement is a report of a planned or committed crime. It is filed if information about a criminal offense is communicated to the investigator, interrogating officer or prosecutor.
If the application is expressed in the form of an oral communication, law enforcement officers are obliged to immediately take explanations from the applicant and to draw up the communication in the proper manner. The applicant may be a victim, an eyewitness or another person who has information about the offense.
In some cases, this form is considered the only suitable type of reason for initiating a criminal case. Such cases include criminal offenses of a private nature, in which a criminal case can be instituted only upon request from the victim or his representative by proxy or by force of law.
Appearance of the offender
The next reason for initiating a criminal case is the voluntary appearance of the offender in law enforcement agencies with the aim of reporting a planned or committed crime. The application must be addressed to the investigator, interrogating officer or prosecutor. A criminal reporting this information to a person who is not related to law enforcement agencies is not considered an excuse.
Mandatory signs of this type of reason for initiating a criminal case are voluntariness, as well as the content in the message of accurate data on the criminal acts committed by this person. In this regard, the recognition of a citizen in the implementation of unlawful actions during interrogation is not considered a voluntary appearance.
Reporting of an impending or committed criminal offense from other sources
The next value of the reasons and grounds for initiating a criminal case is information from extraneous sources that were received by the employees of the bodies of inquiry or investigation or by the prosecutor during the exercise of their immediate duties.
This information may come from legal entities or individuals.In addition, this group includes messages that are not addressed directly to law enforcement agencies (for example, messages in media reports, information in other sources, etc.).
The peculiarity of such information is that although they were not transmitted (or addressed) to the employees of the investigation or inquiry bodies, the latter are obliged to check the reasons for initiating a criminal case.
Upon receipt of the above information, the employee who received it (if it is a matter of carrying out administrative procedural actions, then the person responsible for these actions) is obliged to draw up a report that he has found signs of a crime. This report serves as a pretext for initiating a criminal case.
Base
Elements of criminal prosecution: reasons, grounds, subjects and procedure. The bases in it play one of the key roles. According to the norms of criminal procedure legislation, the grounds are the presence of sufficient information that indicates signs of a criminal offense. There is no direct definition in the code, but an analysis of the norms allows it to be drawn up.
After checking the existing reason for initiating a criminal case, the inquiry officer, investigator or prosecutor checks this information. Since the concept of sufficiency of information is evaluative, authorized persons themselves decide whether there is enough data to ensure that the case was opened properly.
When receiving information and assigning it to a group of reasons for initiating a criminal case under the Code of Criminal Procedure, when deciding on its sufficiency, the following factors are taken into account as a basis for starting a case:
- a circle of information and circumstances, the knowledge of which should be available to the inquiry officer or investigator in each particular case;
- the likelihood that this information confirms the commission of a criminal offense.
The concept of grounds includes information about the actual incident and data on the inherent signs of a criminal law nature. In most cases, this includes information about the object of the attack and the objective side of the offense. Data on the subject itself and its motives (subjective side) are much less common.
In contrast to the notion of a reason for initiating a criminal case, the basis is sufficient information obtained from various sources about the presence of signs of a committed or planned criminal offense. As well as the absence of key circumstances that preclude criminal proceedings.
The sufficiency of information indicating the presence of evidence of an offense obtained during the verification of the occasion to institute criminal proceedings should be considered from the point of view of the nature of the data and its volume. From the point of view of nature, sufficient evidence is evidence indicating a particular action or inaction, for which criminal sanctions are imposed.
From the point of view of volume, it is analyzed whether the facts revealed are sufficient to build a weighty theory about the probability of criminal acts that can be qualified under any article of the Criminal Code.
If the investigator or the interrogating officer has made a decision on their sufficiency, they draw a presumptive conclusion about the qualification of the committed or conceived crime, which is reflected in the relevant resolution. In carrying out further procedural actions, the facts specified in the resolution may be changed on the basis of evidence found or other facts. Therefore, the version built by the investigator or interrogator may differ from the event that actually happened.
Stages of initiating a case: their meaning and concept
The initiation of a criminal case includes three concepts, considered from different legal positions:
- In the field of the theory of law, institution of proceedings is a criminal procedure institute, which is a set of criminal law norms that govern legal relations arising in the process of receiving, registering, investigating and resolving reports of criminal offenses.
- In the field of law enforcement, the initiation of a case is a decision that is issued by the relevant official in the form of a resolution that completes the consideration of the statement of a committed or planned crime. Also, initiating a case is a legal fact, which means the beginning of an investigation of a criminal offense.
- In the field of judicial law, initiating a case is the initial stage of criminal proceedings, which is characterized by the independence of the tasks, procedural methods and means, decisions and terms.
Signs of the initiation stage
- She has a time frame (according to the norms of the criminal procedure legislation, from the moment a crime report is received until the initiation of a case no more than seventy-two hours must pass). In cases specified by the third part of Article 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the decision of the prosecutor, the head of the investigation department or the head of the body of inquiry may extend up to 240 hours.
- At this stage, activities are underway to consider the statement of a criminal act and make the necessary decision, which is due to the tasks set at this stage.
- The main goal of the stage is to establish the conditions (procedural) that are necessary for making an informed and lawful decision to initiate a criminal case. Thus, at the stage of initiating proceedings, it is necessary to establish whether the reason is lawful and whether there are sufficient grounds for initiating proceedings, or whether there is a procedural reason for refusing to initiate a criminal case.
- The tasks of the initial stage are to accept, register, resolve allegations of crime, along with searching and fixing the traces of the committed act, as well as taking measures that will help prevent and combat the committed or planned crime.
- A feature of the stage is the circle of its constituent entities. This circle includes the applicant (who made the official communication) and law enforcement officers (investigator, inquiry officer, prosecutor), who are required to accept the application and verify the facts indicated therein.
- When carrying out actions at the stage of the institution of the case, legal relations arise, develop and end exclusively between the above entities. Attraction of other persons at this stage is unacceptable.
- The stage of the institution of the case is distinguished by the means used at it: obtaining information about the applicant; verification of documents; clarification of some data from the report of a criminal offense; requesting information from the media, materials or documents that confirm the report of the offense; requesting information about the person who provided this data. In some cases, the law allows the use of such a tool as a crime scene investigation, examination or the appointment of a forensic examination. These funds are acceptable when you need to immediately check the message received.
- The legal fact that causes the emergence of legal relations at the stage of starting a case is a legitimate reason. The legal fact that completes the legal relationship is the drafting of a decision indicating the conclusions of the authorized person that it is necessary to verify the fact of criminal actions (verification is carried out in the form of an investigation or inquiry using appropriate procedural methods and means). If the audit did not yield positive results, the final legal fact will be a decision to refuse to institute proceedings.
The stage of the institution of the case is characterized by the fact that it only records the fact that signs of a crime were discovered. On the corpus delicti at this stage is not talking. At the stage of starting a case, there are only fragmentary facts and some elements of the offense (object and objective side). All other elements are established only at the preliminary stage of the investigation, when a charge is brought against a specific person with the further transfer of the case to a judicial authority.
The stage of the institution of the case is different in that the implementation of any actions to carry out investigative actions is impossible without the approval of the decision finalizing the stage with the prosecutor.
Procedure for instituting criminal proceedings
Integral elements of the investigation stage prior to the issuance of the decision are the reasons, grounds and procedure for initiating a criminal case. Verification of reasons and the search for grounds will be useless if the procedure for starting a case is not followed.
Article 146 of the Code of Criminal Procedure defines the elements that should be in the decision (place and date of compilation, name and position of the employee, case under consideration, grounds for investigation, qualification of the crime).
The drawn-up resolution and case materials are subject to immediate transfer to the prosecutor for approval. After verification, the prosecutor gives his consent to the institution of the case or refuses it due to defects in the investigation. To eliminate these inaccuracies, an official shall be given no more than five days.
Public-Private Cases
A feature of the initiation of cases of this type is that the reason may be exclusively the statement of the injured person. Exceptions can only be made for citizens who are not able to carry out independent protection of their rights.
The state of defenselessness can be expressed in helplessness by virtue of the law or for medical reasons, or because of being dependent on the suspect. In this case, a criminal case may be brought by the prosecutor or, with his consent, the investigator (interrogator).
In a state of helplessness, a statement is not required from the victim, and the investigation is conducted according to general rules.
Private accusations
The peculiarity of initiating cases of this type is that the reason for initiating a criminal case is exclusively a statement addressed to the justice of the peace from the injured citizen or his representative.
If, due to objective reasons (state of helplessness), the victim cannot protect his legitimate interests, the case shall be instituted by the prosecutor. In this case, the prosecutor transfers the case to carry out the preliminary stage of the investigation.
A feature of such cases is the impossibility of concluding a settlement agreement by virtue of Article 318 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. If the reasons and grounds checked at the preliminary stage are confirmed, the justice of the peace takes the case into its proceedings.
The initiation of a criminal case goes through several stages before working with the suspect. The admission of violations at one stage will lead to the inability to bring the perpetrator to justice.