Grounds for the cancellation or amendment of court decisions in criminal cases on appeal

Abstract

The article analyzes the legal regulation and practice of applying the grounds of appeal. The positive and negative sides of the statutory recognition of the grounds of appeal are revealed. The author comes to the conclusion that when establishing such grounds in the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation, the rules of formal logic and systematization of legislation were violated. The grounds of appeal do not form a unified system, they do not cover all possible violations that entail the delivery of unjust court decisions. As a result of the study, it can be affirmed that the absence of appeal grounds will protect the rights of the individual in criminal proceedings to the maximum extent by maximizing the extension of the subject of the appeal and verification of court decisions, and it will provide ample opportunity for the court of appeal to identify and eliminate any violations committed. In addition to this, it is necessary to increase the requirements for the reasoning of appeals, representations of professional participants in criminal procedures and the quality of the justification and motivation of decisions by courts of appeal. The absence of the grounds of appeal makes it necessary to provide a detailed answer to the arguments of the subjects of the appeal set out in the complaints, as a result of which the decision of the court of appeal becomes not only legal, reasonable, motivated and fair, but also convincing. Equally, the absence of such grounds guarantees the independence of judges and their high professionalism, as well as the demand for creative potential when reviewing court decisions. In turn, the consolidation in the criminal procedure law of various grounds for reviewing court decisions that have entered into legal force will make it possible to limit separate control and verification stages of the criminal process from each other.