SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FINAL STAGE OF THE TRIAL OF CRIMINAL CASES

Abstract

The article completes a series of the author's publications devoted to the construction of the basic methodology of court proceedings. If the previous publications considered the situations of its initial and subsequent stages, now the situational characteristics of the final stage of the trial of criminal cases are presented, which includes court debates, the last word of the accused, the court's final decision in the case and its announcement. Based on the results of the research, the author comes to the conclusions that after removal to the consultation room, in the presence of circumstances that require additional investigation, courts should be guided by the general principles of criminal proceedings and issue a decision on the resumption of the trial , being aware of his professional duty to adopt a legal, substantiated and reasoned court decision, which follows from the direct prescription of the law and corresponds to the constitutional principle of legality and the provisions of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms regarding the right to a fair trial. It is necessary to review the doctrinal concept of the "Deliberation Room" and the legislator's approach to ensuring the secrecy of the judges' meeting. In today's conditions, only the ban on judges communicating with persons who participated in criminal proceedings and disclosing the course of discussion and decision-making in the deliberation room remains relevant. In order to optimize court proceedings, the article substantiates proposals for improving the current legislation, which will legalize the resumption of court proceedings after the removal of the court to the deliberation room and allow the court to announce only the introductory and final parts of the court decision.