Mark the 90th Anniversary of the Birth Of Y.M. Hroshevyi: Contribution of an Outstanding Scientist to the Development of the Theory and Practice of Criminal Procedure Evidence

On April 13, 2012 (10 years ago) Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine decided to approve the new Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the CPC of Ukraine), which was primarily developed with international and European standards in the field of criminal justice as reference. Thus, Art.9 of the CPC of Ukraine originally indicates the need to take into account the practice of the European Court of Human Rights in the process of applying criminal procedure legislation at the level of the law. The new CPC of Ukraine is conveniently structured. Many evaluative concepts appeared (for example, reasonableness of terms). The adoption of the CPC of Ukraine in 2012 can be generally called a «positive breakthrough» for the legislation of Ukraine in the whole. I would like to highlight the following аmong the most progressive provisions:
–– entirely new institutions were introduced, for example, the institution of agreements in criminal procedure, which is an agreement between the parties formalized in the relevant service document and aimed at settling the criminal law conflict;
–– Article 45 of the new CPC of Ukraine clearly established that a lawyer can only act as a defense counsel in criminal proceedings, thereby prohibiting «specialists in the field of law» from carrying out defense;
–– the need to distinguish between crimes and criminal offenses was clearly defined for the first time at the legislative level, and the features of the investigation of the criminal offenses were formulated as well;
–– a separate chapter «Foundations of criminal proceedings» appeared where the legislature fixed 22 general foundations in accordance with which criminal legal proceeding should be carried out;
–– a procedure for a special pre-trial investigation or special judicial proceedings (in absentia) in respect of a suspect, except for a minor who is hiding from the investigation authorities and the court in order to evade criminal liability if he is outside Ukraine;
–– the law provides for a special arrangements of pre-trial investigation in conditions of martial law, a state of 9 emergency or in the area of an antiterrorist operation;
–– another innovation is a significant expansion of the functioning of the court to monitor the observance of the rights and freedoms of the parties to criminal proceedings during the pre-trial investigation, as well as the introduction of the institute of the investigating judge as a person specially authorized to exercise such control for the given purpose. Almost all criminal procedure institutions were generally improved in the new Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.