CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING THE REASONABILITY OF TERMS OF CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS IN LEGISLATION, JUDICIAL PRACTICE, SCIENCE

Abstract

The principle of reasonableness of the terms of criminal proceedings is an element of the right to a fair trial and by its content provides for the movement of the investigation, court stages without unjustified delays within the procedural terms. For the correct application of the principle of reasonableness of terms, the legislator defined a set of criteria: 1) complexity of criminal proceedings; 2) behavior of participants in criminal proceedings; 3) the manner in which investigators, prosecutors, and courts exercise their powers (p. 3 of art. 28 of the Criminal procedural code of Ukraine). Our research made it possible to find out that the specified criteria are implemented from the practice of the ECHR. In the interpretation of these criteria, ECHR has expressed a position according to which the active using of procedural rights by the participants cannot be considered as an obstacle to the implementation of the proceedings, if there is no abuse of the right. The ECHR mostly ignores the references of government representatives to the delay of the proceedings by its participants, since law enforcement bodies and courts have means of coercive influence on the participants of the proceedings who do not fulfill their procedural obligations. When calculating the “reasonable period of investigation”, the ECHR takes into account only the period of time for the authorities to carry out those actions that are really justified and useful for achieving the objectives of the criminal proceedings. The ECHR does not consider circumstances such as excessive workload of law-enforcement and judicial bodies, their underfunding to be a justification for the excessive duration of the proceedings. Taking into account acts of international law, practice of the ECtHR, our own arguments, we consider it necessary to supplement p. 3 of art. 28 of the Criminal procedural code of Ukraine and to the list of criteria for evaluating the reasonability of the terms of criminal proceedings include the factor of the significance of the proceedings for its participants, based on their actual situation and needs.