The Presumption of Innocence and Termination of Proceedings in Criminal Cases (Acquittal)

Abstract

Any person is regarded as innocent unless proven otherwise by established legal procedure. In the field of criminal procedure, this legal principle is called the presumption of innocence. With the adoption of the USSR Constitution of 1977, a firmer basis was established in law for the presumption of innocence as an important legal principle. Whereas there was no such provision in the USSR Constitution of 1936, Article 160 of the Constitution now reads: "No one may be adjudged guilty of a crime and subjected to punishment as a criminal except by the sentence of a court and in conformity with the law." This constitutional provision contains all the necessary components of the notion of presumption of innocence. For it is a fact that only a court, in its verdict, has the right to find a person guilty of committing a crime, from which it follows that so long as there is no verdict of guilt and it has not gone into legal force, the person has not been found guilty by the state even though he has been held accountable for a crime. The formulation of the presumption of innocence, based on Article 160 of the USSR Constitution, is contained in point 2 of the decree of the full bench of the USSR Supreme Soviet "On Practices in Application by Courts of Law Assuring an Accused the Right to Defense" of June 16, 1978, which reads: "An accused (a defendant) is regarded as innocent until his guilt has been proved by the procedure provided by law and a verdict has entered into legal force" [1].