MODERN APPROACHES TO DIGITALIZATION OF PRE-TRIAL PROCEEDINGS IN CRIMINAL CASES

The Russian criminal procedure is conservative and hardly affected by modern advances in digital technology. Outdated written proceedings are extremely resource-intensive and inefficient. Enshrinement of the regulations leading to a full implementation of the criminal proceedings in electronic format in the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation will lead to significant savings — both of materials and resources and work force, to facilitate the work of stakeholders and participants in criminal proceedings, will expedite and increase the transparency of the pretrial proceedings, simplify and reduce the cost of storage, archival and recovery of lost criminal cases. Electronic records management will simplify the creation of an electronic archive of criminal cases, so that it is possible to solve a number of forensic tasks, such as identifying crimes similar in method of commission (pattern in crime) with serial ones, committed in organized forms. The criminal cases stored in the electronic archive can be used to train investigators in the methods of investigation and preparation of procedural documents. Analyzing the experience of electronic records management application in different countries, the author comes to the conclusion that all the technologies necessary for the digitalization of criminal proceedings have already been developed, are available and widely distributed. The developed technical solutions are universal and can be applied to the digitalization of criminal proceedings, regardless of their type, belonging to the legal family, legal traditions of a particular state. The introduction of electronic record-keeping requires, however, certain changes in the Russian criminal procedure. No digitalization is possible until the legislator recognizes the evidence as information rather than a formally defined document and equates the file to a protocol. The use of new technologies for recording evidentiary information will require the development of new technical and procedural means to ensure the admissibility of such evidence.

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