ABOUT THE NATURE, CONCEPT AND LIMITS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Abstract

The definition of the essence and content of justice is one of the actual problems of domestic legal science. The notion of justice remains debatable, including in the area of criminal procedure. The question of what actions and decisions of the court are covered by the definition “criminal justice” is not only theoretical and doctrinal, but also methodological and practical importance for criminal proceedings. There is the essence of criminal justice reveals and definition of criminal justice formulates in this article. Author considers the existing views on the limits of criminal justice in science, reveals the essence of two opposite approaches: giving justice a narrow and broad meanings. Further in the article the author criticizes the limited (narrow) interpretation of criminal justice and argues its insolvency, based on the actual role of the judiciary in modern society and in the state-legal system of Russia. The analysis of the current legislation and legal positions of supreme courts of the Russian Federation allows the author to conclude that there are legal grounds for giving the concept of “criminal justice” wide significance and inclusion in it not only activities for the consideration of the criminal case, implying the decision of the question of guilt, responsibility and punishment of the accused, but also the resolution of other legal issues raised before the court in cases of judicial control and at the stage of execution of punishment. At the end of the article, in order to continue a comprehensive study of the limits (borders) of criminal justice, it is proposed to apply the criteria for classifying different types and forms of judicial activity as criminal justice, and as such criteria to use universally recognized signs of justice. The author devotes to this comparative analysis his following article “Signs and limits of criminal justice”.