Prosecutor's supervision of the legality and reasonableness of accusation as a guarantee of the justice of the court's verdict

Legality. Reasonableness and fairness are prerequisites, to which the verdict of the court in the criminal case must correspond. Otherwise, it is subject to cancellation or, at least, amendment by the courts of appeal and cassation instances in connection with significant violations of criminal or criminal procedure laws. At the same time, a sentence is considered unfair if the convicted person is sentenced, although it does not exceed the scope of the sanction of the relevant article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but it is either excessively harsh, or excessively soft.

To a certain extent, the court's passing of a fair verdict depends on the position of the prosecutor, the public prosecutor, who presents evidence to the court that incriminates the defendant in the judicial investigation and analyzes them in court debates. However, it cannot be denied, that the legal and factual basis of a fair sentence is formed even in pre-trial proceedings, provided that the investigator ensures comprehensiveness, the completeness and objectivity of the investigation of the circumstances of the crime under investigation, the legality and validity of the charges against the person. This should be facilitated by the appropriate level of organization and implementation of prosecutorial supervision at this stage of the criminal process.

The prosecutor's assessment of the legality and validity of the indictment is one of the most important stages in the prosecutor's supervision of pre-trial proceedings. This assessment is performed twice: 1) upon receipt of a copy of the relevant indictment; and 2) upon examination of the criminal case submitted with the indictment. However, in the first case, prosecutors often merely acknowledge the fact of the indictment without fully reviewing the materials of the criminal case that contain evidence of the accused's alleged crime. When examining cases with indictments, this work is carried out more fully by prosecutors, but they still ignore all necessary actions and mental operations. The result is the referral of criminal cases to the courts, where the quality of the preliminary investigation and the quality of the prosecutor's supervision in pre-trial proceedings are negatively evaluated.

The prosecutor's warning about the referral of a criminal case to court, in which significant violations of the law were committed during the pre-trial proceedings, including during the presentation of charges, and the state prosecutor's justified refusal to prosecute the defendant, contain an undeniable ethical component and comply with the requirements of justice. In the activities of the prosecutor's office, the criterion of justice should be present at all times and be an essential component of the prosecutor's worldview. Of course, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements of the law is the direct responsibility of the prosecutor's office. However, in carrying out this responsibility, the prosecutor's office must also consider the ethical aspects of the participants' activities during the pre-trial proceedings, as well as the practical implementation of this requirement in their work, including the supervision of the enforcement of laws during the process of bringing charges.