No abstract

The prerequisites for the research were formed by a complex collision between the legal nature of proceedings in the jury court and the standard sanitary and epidemiological restrictions. This collision was revealed in the course of the theoretical treatment of administration of justice in the pandemic period. The primary stage of judicial proceedings involving the participation of the jury was highlighted by the authors as a subject of the research – formation of the trial jury, where the said collision appears to be especially acute. The purpose of the study was to search for possible solutions to this collision; the objective – verification of the hypothesis stating that the pandemic situation has engendered a significant modification of the procedural form of trial jury selection. To resolve this problem, the normative approach, along with the method of legal comparative studies, was used: the criminal procedure legislation and the practice of its enforcement in the Russian Federation and a number of foreign countries was analysed. General logical methods were used: analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction and progression from the abstract to the concrete, etc. The result of the research is the identification of special approaches in the Russian and foreign models of court proceedings involving the participation of the jury, reflecting the intention to adjust the procedure of trial jury formation to the pandemic period requirements: telecommuted formation of the trial jury in full or in part; replacing verbal questioning of candidates to the jury with a written questionnaire; extending the questioning of jury candidates through the inclusion of specific issues concerning the epidemiological situation. The hypothesis proposed in the publication was confirmed, in particular, relative to the Russian court proceedings with the participation of the jury.

The processes of the convergence and divergence of law in the era of globalization as well as the trend for establishing similar court proceedings in different countries determine the necessity of studying legal concepts still unknown in the Russian legislation but widely applied in other countries, and expediency is one of them. The goal of this research is to analyze Russian and foreign legislation from both modern and historical perspectives, to analyze the legal regulation of expediency in criminal proceedings, to determine its contents, to differentiate between expediency as a principle and as grounds for the decision to refuse the initiation of criminal proceedings or to terminate them, which is made by a specially authorized official or a state body, to present well-grounded suggestions for the improvement of Russian legislation and the practice of law enforcement. It is determined that expediency is recognized as a principle of criminal proceedings in a number of European states. It is shown that the principle of expediency does not contradict justice and is based on such characteristics of criminal procedure activities as effectiveness, optimality, promptness, procedural economy. At the same time, legislations of the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland provide for the discretionary powers of the prosecutor and other officials to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings, to refuse to bring charges or support them due to inexpediency. The authors show the advantages and disadvantages of making decisions on such grounds: the disadvantages include wide discretionary powers of the officials which could lead to the abuse of power in the absence of necessary guarantees (corruption-generating factor); the advantages are procedural economy, wide opportunities for officials and state bodies involved in the criminal process to use discretionary powers depending on the circumstances of each specific case. They argue that the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation should provide an opportunity for specially authorized officials and state bodies to refuse to initiate a criminal case or pursue criminal prosecution on the grounds of inexpediency.