General and Special Theories of Criminal Procedure
The relevance of the article can be determined on the basis of research on general theories of criminal procedure. The main theoretical provisions of the criminal procedure of continental Europe began to be developed in 1864, after the adoption of the Charter of the Criminal Proceedings of Russia. Theoretical developments included a conceptual approach that defined guarantees for the rights, freedoms and interests of participants in the procedure, basic principles, forms of evidence and proving, the procedure for investigative and judicial actions. The aim of the article is to reveal the theoretical content of the general theory of the procedure and to determine new special theories enshrined in the current legislation. If general theories of the procedure have been considered at the level of monographic research, special ones have remained outside the scope of studies. The novelty of the research consists in the disclosure of theoretical and practical aspects of general and special theories of criminal procedure on the basis of existing legislation and the practice of its application by criminal justice authorities and the collegiate court. The article considers the theoretical aspects of a special theory. Issues of the optimization and procedural economy of criminal procedure based on benchmark theory are related to the release of a person from criminal liability and the use of alternative measures. New legal definitions are proposed that establish a clear mechanism for procedural, investigative (search), judicial actions in establishing, securing, evaluating evidence of guilt or innocence of a person. The existing legal constructions of general theories provide an impetus for the application of special theories of criminal procedure, which are associated with solving the problems of criminal proceedings, its optimization, and procedural economy of applying criminal procedural repression. The current criminal procedural law does not fully define the concept of general and special theories of the procedure. The article proposes theoretical aspects and practical solutions to these emerging problematic issues. The basic concept of the article includes the analysis of general and special theories of criminal procedure, the determination of the provisions for its optimization and procedural economy on the basis of the unified content of criminal and procedural rules in establishing circumstances related to the closure of criminal proceedings, and the release of a person from criminal liability. Based on the analysis of the current criminal procedural legislation, the content of procedural repressions, which are determined on the basis of the procedural status of prosecution and the mechanism of their application with respect to a particular category of participants in criminal proceedings, is revealed.