SUSPENSION OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IN THE EVENT OF THE DEFENDANT’S ESCAPE (DISAPPEARANCE) DURING MARTIAL LAW

Abstract

The article establishes additional reasons for the suspension of court proceedings, on the basis of which in practice courts make decisions to suspend court proceedings, as well as developing recommendations for preventing errors when making a decision to suspend court proceedings in criminal proceedings. The approach to understanding the word «evaded from appearing in court» and its incompatibility with disappearance, escape and hiding is analyzed. The purpose of the article is to study the suspension of court proceedings in the event of the escape, disappearance or hiding of the accused during martial law. It is stated that during martial law the accused does not fulfill procedural duties, this is primarily an opportunity to take advantage of the chaotic situation to delay the trial or hide from the pre-trial investigation body, the prosecutor’s office, the investigating judge or the court. It has been analyzed that the purpose of escape, disappearance or hiding is to evade criminal liability, which seems more correct than the intention to avoid it, since the accused is hiding, but in most cases understands that he will eventually be found and does not set himself the task of completely evading conviction, but only wants to postpone it. An additional ground for suspension of the court proceedings has been established, as «the location of the accused has not been established on other grounds», however, other grounds should be understood as circumstances when the accused changes his place of residence without knowing that criminal proceedings have been initiated against him and/or other grounds that prevented the court from obtaining information about the change of the accused’s place of residence (sudden hospitalization, death, error regarding his procedural status). In addition, the given judicial examples provide an opportunity to understand the gaps that arise when analyzing the grounds for stopping judicial proceedings, because in conditions of martial law, justice must be fair and adhere to the principles of criminal procedure.