Ensuring the Constitutional Rights and Freedoms of Participants in Criminal Proceedings in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
The emergence of new threats and risks caused by coronavirus infection and previously not predicted in the main documents of the national strategic development has led to the transformation of law and legal science. The participants in the criminal proceedings were assigned additional duties of a public legal nature, which affected the ability to directly participate in the procedural actions, as well as to fully exercise constitutional rights and freedoms during the preliminary investigation and trial. In turn, representatives of the judicial and investigative authorities faced serious difficulties in fulfilling the requirements of criminal procedure and other legislation that is not adapted to such crisis situations on a global scale. The purpose of the study is to develop scientifically based and practically significant recommendations aimed at ensuring the constitutional rights and freedoms of participants in criminal proceedings in the conditions of the new coronavirus infection, regardless of their procedural and legal status. Research objectives: analysis of the world experience in the formation of criminal procedural mechanisms to ensure the rights and freedoms of participants in legal proceedings in connection with countering the spread of COVID-19; study of the activities of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the judicial community in the context of a pandemic crisis; identification of features of the digital transformation of criminal proceedings in the context of countering the spread of the coronavirus pandemic (including the use of video conferencing systems-connections); substantiation of measures for further development of legislation and improvement of law enforcement practice aimed at ensuring the constitutional rights and freedoms of participants in criminal proceedings in a crisis situation. Research methodology: dialectical method of cognition, general scientific methods of abstraction, analysis and synthesis, special legal methods (comparative legal, logical legal, etc.). Conclusion: the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the need to improve the criminal procedural mechanisms for the effective functioning of criminal proceedings. Additional incentives are required to search for new conceptual ideas and scientifically based solutions aimed at ensuring the constitutional rights and legitimate interests of participants in legal proceedings who are in selfisolation. The expediency of modernizing legislation and improving law enforcement practice along the way of introducing modern information technologies into the domestic criminal process and the progressive transition from a simple written form to electronic legal proceedings is argued.