The Courts and the Law Enforcement System

Abstract

The article discusses the mechanisms used by appeals courts when reviewing cases. The empirical data shows that there are discrepancies between the annulment of convictions and the annulment of acquittals. When looking at database that encompass a six-year period before and after introducing the new Criminal Procedure Code we show how law enforcement system urges the counter-reform in applying the new Criminal Procedure Code and results in developing of different policies in treating convictions and acquittals by appellate courts.

Keywords::

• appeals courts
• law enforcement system
• Criminal Procedure Code
• review of sentences

Notes

English translation © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text, “Sud i pravookhranitel'naia sistema—tsena kompromissa,” in Obvinenie i opravdanie v postsovetskoi ugolovnoi iustitsii: sbornik statei (Moscow: Norma, 2015), pp. 104–30. Published with the author's permission. [Notes have been renumbered in this edition.—Ed.] Mikhail Pozdniakov is a researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law, European University in St. Petersburg. Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/mrup.

^1. See Pravookhranitel'naia deiatel'nost’ v Rossii: struktura, funktsionirovanie, puti reformirovaniia. Chasti 1 i 2, ed. V. Volkov and E. Paneyakh (St. Petersburg: IPP at the EU SPb, 2012).

^2. Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) investigator, St. Petersburg.

^3. See Pravookhranitel'naia deiatel'nost’, p. 62.

^4. By a “higher court” I mean a court at the level of a subject of the federation (an oblast or krai court or court of equivalent status).

^5. See Rossiiskie sud'i kak professional'naia gruppa: sotsiologicheskoe issledovanie, ed. V. Volkov (St. Petersburg: IPP at the EU SPb, 2012), p. 41.

^6. For further explanation of the forms of protest and review of trial outcomes at higher courts, see the Paneyakh article in this issue, pp. 138–163.

^7. Special procedure – is a form of plea bargaining that includes admission of guilt.

^8. See D.N. Kozak, “Vstupitel'naia stat'ia,” in Kommentariia UPK RF, ed. D.N. Kozak and E.B. Mizulina (Moscow, 2002), pp. 45–48.

^9. According to point 2.8.4. III. Formation of Statistical Reporting of a Conviction, “Instructions Concerning the Keeping of Judicial Statistics” (adopted by Decree of the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the RF No. 169 of December 29, 2007): “In instances of partial annulment, change, or other adjustment of a verdict (decree in a case), the values of indicators in the sections ‘Information About the Verdict (Decree),’ ‘Punishment Set Under the Main Article of the Verdict,’ and ‘Total Punishment for the Conviction’ inserted by the court of first instance shall be crossed out, and values inserted in the squares and on the lines provided for completion by higher courts.”

^10. The rules for compiling the court document in support of a conviction are a clear example. According to points 5–6 of Part 1 of Article 220 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it was necessary to present a list of items of evidence. The practice of writing such documents without a detailed assessment of the evidence began to spread immediately. However, this practice was suppressed and there was a return to the previous practice of detailed assessment of all evidence. Only in 2010, however, was the Criminal Procedure Code amended (Federal Law No. 19-FZ of March 9, 2010).

^11. Examples are the principles of being multilateral, complete, and objective (Article 20 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR) or the principle of objective truth. Discussions about restoring these provisions to the Criminal Procedure Code have been initiated by scholars and practitioners, including officials of the Investigations Committee.