The Interaction of the Investigator, the Head of the Investigative Body and the Prosecutor in the Initiation and Implementation of Criminal Prosecution
Authors: Lazareva Valentina 
Published: August 2021

Introduction: criminal prosecution is a specific legal concept that means a certain type of law enforcement activity. Having introduced this concept into legal use, the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation pointed to the purpose of this activity – the exposure of a suspect accused of committing a crime (Paragraph 56 of Article 5), its compliance with the scheduling criminal proceedings (Part 2 of Article 6), types (Chapter 3) and subjects (Chapter 6). The content of this activity, the methods of its implementation indicate that the criminal prosecution coincides with the procedural activities of the inquirer, investigator and prosecutor, that is, it is carried out through the performance of each of the named persons of their powers. This allows us to put forward and substantiate the thesis that a preliminary investigation is a criminal prosecution carried out in the procedural form of a proceeding or inquiry, that is, an activity aimed at identifying and exposing a person, a suspect, or an accused of committing a crime, whose efficiency depends on a properly organized procedural interaction of the entities carrying out this activity, which together form the prosecutorial power of the state. The purpose of the study: to identify the reasons for the lack of effective cooperation of the criminal prosecution authorities and suggest the ways to eliminate them. The objectives of the study: to characterize the role (function) of the bodies, inquiry, investigation, prosecutor’s office in pre-trial proceedings in a criminal case, to formulate and base the conclusion that pre-trial proceedings in a criminal case are a form of criminal prosecution as a common type of criminal procedural activity for the inquirer, investigator and prosecutor. The dialectical, logical, systematic, structural-functional and other general scientific research methods were used in the preparation of the paper; as well as the comparative-legal, formal-legal and other specific scientific methods. Results: the paper shows that the reform of the preliminary investigation bodies, which resulted in the removal of investigators from administrative subordination to the prosecutor, the redistribution of powers between the prosecutor and the head of the investigative body in favor of the latter, did not lead to the expected increase in the procedural independence and independence of the investigator, but had a negative impact on the level of legality of pre-trial proceedings. The amendments made to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in 2007 and later proved to be insufficiently thought out; they are not logical and do not conform well with other norms of criminal procedure law. The shortcomings of the legal regulation of the procedure for exercising the powers of the head of the investigative body and the prosecutor, their interaction with the investigator and among themselves, were only partially corrected by Law No. 404-F of December 28, 2010. Conclusions: the need to improve the efficiency of interaction of the investigator with the head of the investigative body and the prosecutor requires a serious revision of a number of norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.