Criminal procedural consequences of the court’s return of an indictment to the prosecutor

Abstract

The article analyses the criminal procedural consequences which will occur under the current Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine if the court returns an indictment to the prosecutor. Based on a comparison of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine of 1960 and the current Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, it has been established that the current consequences of returning an indictment by a court are different from those which existed when a case was returned for additional investigation under Article 246 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine of 1960 by a judge's decision. It has been argued that no practical attempts should be made, contrary to the provisions of the current Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, to impose on the existing (albeit not perfect) procedural procedure for the prosecutor to eliminate the deficiencies of the indictment, the features of additional investigation which are not inherent to it. It has been determined that the return to the prosecutor of an indictment or a petition for the application of compulsory medical or educational measures due to the fact that they do not meet the requirements of paragraph 3 of Part 3 of Article 314 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine does not resume the pre-trial investigation, nor does it restore the course of its term. It has been proved that after returning the said procedural documents to the prosecutor, the prosecution should act without unreasonable delays and should not conduct new investigative (search) actions or other actions related to the collection of evidence. Such a return does not exclude the possibility of the prosecutor performing certain procedural actions which are of an organisational nature or are necessary to ensure the execution of a court order and to correct the deficiencies of an indictment, or a request for the application of compulsory medical or educational measures. It has been argued that a prosecutor may not, by abusing his/her rights (powers), i.e. contrary to the scope and procedure for exercising his/her discretionary powers, use the return of the above documents to actually continue the pre-trial investigation and eliminate its shortcomings. It has been concluded that in case of the opposite development of events, due to the commission of a criminal procedural offence by the prosecutor, there will be grounds for criminal procedural consequences, for example, the court's declaring the evidence inadmissible or those provided for in paragraph 10 of Part 1 of Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.