LEGAL REGULATIONS AND THE LATEST TRENDS IN THE PRACTICE OF IMPROVING THE PROCEDURAL FORM OF COURT DECISIONS OF THE APPELLATE INSTANCE IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

The scientific study carried out a systematic analysis of the decisions of the appeal court in the criminal proceedings of Ukraine. In particular, on the basis of general scientific, special methods, the structure and content of individual decisions of the appellate court are studied in detail, modern trends in domestic judicial practice regarding the implementation of the procedural form of such decisions are analyzed, personal assessments are given on a number of issues directly related to the topic of the study. Attention is drawn to the fact that the legislative regulation of the procedural form of decisions of the appellate court (except final ones) is extremely inconsistent and incomplete. This is particularly true of decisions that resolve procedural issues, often of a rather important nature (about the examination of certain evidence, for example), which are adopted directly at the court session and are formalized by entering the court session secretary into the court session journal. It is emphasized that such a situation gives rise to different ways of implementing the procedural form of such decisions, which does not contribute to the legality of the proceedings and ensuring the proper legal procedure. This, in turn, requires the earliest unification of judicial practice regarding the drafting, in particular, of initial and interim decisions of the appellate court, by regulating the basic requirements for the procedural form of such decisions in the current Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine. In view of the above, the author’s vision of solving this issue is presented. In particular, some proposals were proposed regarding the introduction of changes and additions to the criminal procedural legislation: improvement of the regulation of the motivational part of the decision of the court of appeals in Art. 419 of the CCP of Ukraine; improvement of the procedure for resolving the issue of opening (refusal to open) appellate proceedings when renewing the missed deadline for an appeal by transferring these powers to the reporting judge; establishing requirements for the level of motivation and substantiation of “protocol” decisions of the appellate court in Article 372 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.