Criminal Charge (Criminal Prosecution) as a Function of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Empire after the Judicial Reform of 1864

The paper examines the normative foundations and theoretical views of pre-Soviet and modern scholars on the concept and content of a criminal charge (criminal prosecution) as a function of the Prosecutor ‘s Office of the Russian Empire after the judicial reform of 1864. The author shows the correlation between this function and supervising function in the prosecutor’s office activities. The paper analyzes legal terminology related to criminal prosecution and shows that there is a dual approach of researchers to the concept of this function as a certain «requirement» or «activity». The author considers the content of the initial and final charges and related controversial issues, in particular on the implementation of prosecutorial criminal prosecution at the stage of preliminary investigation. The connection between pre-Soviet and modern science in approaches to the analysis of the accusation function is shown.

The author concludes that due to the judicial reform of 1864, the prosecutor’s office was assigned a new function of making charges, which became the main one in its activities. The legislation included «detection of crimes and prosecution of perpetrators» in the content of the prosecution function, but did not define the concept of prosecution. In this regard, the science and departmental regulations of the Prosecutor’s office in the content of criminal prosecution in a broad sense included almost all the activities of the prosecutor in the criminal process. The prosecutor initiated such prosecution by initiating criminal cases and during the preliminary investigation carried it out through prosecutorial supervision. The prosecutor initiated criminal prosecution against particular persons either directly at the initiation of a criminal case, or indirectly during the supervision of the investigation, or directly at the stage of trial in cases in which the investigation was not conducted. Despite the fact that the prosecutor did not initiate the initial charge in all criminal cases, at the stage of bringing to court he formulated his final charge in all cases in which he considered the guilt of the accused proven.

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