Presumption of guilt

On January 30, a draft law was submitted to the State Duma to introduce the concept of “objective truth” into the Code of Criminal Procedure, an ardent supporter of which is the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin

Not even two millennia had passed, and people from the prosecutor's office found the answer to the famous question of the procurator Pontius Pilate: "What is truth?" If you believe the draft law drafted in the bowels of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the truth is when the court makes up for the flaws of the investigation, and in case of particularly egregious flaws in the criminal case, returns it to the prosecutor for additional investigation.

The explanatory note calls the presumption of innocence a "fiction" and claims that the adversarial principle is contrary to "traditional Russian criminal procedure." It is known that our prosecutor's office (and, therefore, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, which broke away from it) traces its ancestry to the times of Peter I and sees in his batman, and then Prosecutor General Pavel Yaguzhinsky, his ancestor. Indeed, in the 18th century, in the Secret Office, as in the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, they were tirelessly looking for the truth. It was "objective", that is, genuine and ins and outs, for it was mined in the dungeon under the "long" (whip) and was torn out by needles that were hammered under the nails. Under Soviet rule, when the law required a "comprehensive, complete and objective" study of all the circumstances of the case, interrogations were also practiced with prejudice and they laughed at the presumption of innocence. Today, Russia is suffering defeat after defeat in the European Court, which constantly recognizes the violation by our “law enforcement officers” of the provisions of Articles 3 (prohibition of torture) and 6 (requirement for a fair trial) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Strasbourg judges consider not only the usual torture of suspects, but even the journey to court in a paddy wagon and many hours of waiting for the court in a “box” without hot food and basic amenities as varieties of “inhuman”, cruel and humiliating treatment.

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In the explanatory note to the bill, the presumption of innocence is called a "fiction"

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The real tradition of the Russian criminal process has nothing to do with absolutism, dictatorship and torture under the pretext of obtaining "objective truth". It stems from Russian Truth (XI century), finds its completion in the Judicial Charters of 1864. The cornerstones of our tradition of law, interrupted in 1917, are the presumption of innocence, the adversarial, the trial of the representatives of the people, in which "each defendant is provided with every possible means of acquittal" (Article 612 of the Charter of Criminal Procedure of 1864).

In court, it is not historical truth (“as it really was”) that is established, but legal truth: did the prosecutor prove the accusation in such a way that the judges would have no doubts about the guilt of the defendant. The remaining doubts must be interpreted in favor of the accused, and in this case he is subject to acquittal without any delay. This rule is based on a simple consideration: God knows the truth. We did not observe the act attributed to the defendant, and we can judge the correctness of the statements of the investigator and the prosecutor only on the basis of the evidence presented. Since the investigation and the trial inflict severe psychological trauma on the accused, and in themselves discredit his good name, the criminal prosecution authorities should have only one chance to prove to the court that they took up arms against a person for a reason: if the case is sewn with white thread, an acquittal is issued. This is the only way to teach security officials a quality investigation.

The authors of the project are silent about an important fact: more than 60% of sentences in our country are passed in the so-called "special order", when the punishment is determined without checking the evidence and the court is limited to the agreement of the defendant with the prosecution. Are they going to abolish this procedure? Or do they believe that any confession is true, because it improves the statistics of law enforcement agencies? However, "confession is the queen of evidence." Pavel Yaguzhinsky believed in this, and Andrei Vyshinsky thought the same way.

The implementation of the provisions of the bill will not lead to the triumph of truth, but will expel from our court the already vegetating truth and mercy.