The criminal process in Russia has a peculiarity - the possibility of reviewing decisions, court rulings, and sentences that have taken legal force within the framework of a supervisory instance. In most of the foreign countries there is no similar procedural institute. However, due to the socio-political conditions prevailing on the territory of our state, the need arose for its formation.
After the laws and activities of the European Court of Human Rights were extended to Russia, the question was raised as to whether the supervisory authority and the stages of legal proceedings within it were permissible.
The international judicial authority has confirmed that its presence does not conflict with the principles and objectives of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. But passing the supervisory stage is not required. Even without it, a complaint can be accepted for proceedings by the European Court after the court decision has entered into legal force.
The supervisory authority has as its goal to investigate the decisions of the lower judicial authorities and subsequently make the necessary changes to them, to cancel them if serious violations were committed during the proceedings that led to the decision of an unlawful or unreasonable court decision.
Recall that the basic courts of general jurisdiction are district courts, which hear mainly civil cases; magistrates in less serious civil matters; the regional, republican, regional and Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of the first instance include only some categories of such cases.
According to the current legislation, the supervisory authority in the
civil process has a two-stage structure. And it provides for appeal of decisions in the presidium of the Supreme Republican Court, as well as in courts of regional and regional significance. At the same time, it is possible to write a supervisory appeal against the decisions made by them, which is submitted to the
Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the RF Armed Forces. They are divided into supervisory complaints made to decisions, rulings of decisions that were examined by the courts of supervisory authority, and to those complaints that can be investigated in the framework of the presidium of the court of the constituent entities of the Federation.
Regarding criminal proceedings, it is worth talking about the changes that were made to the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation and entered into force on 01.01.2013. According to the Federal Law, the chapter “Supervisory Proceedings” has lost its legal force. Actual instead of it is the chapter “Proceedings in a court of supervisory authority”. Accordingly, complaints must be examined exclusively by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Therefore, now the courts of the region, territory, judicial board for criminal cases can not engage in the
production of cases as a supervisory authority.
According to the new law, the following persons were added to the circle of people who can appeal the decision that has entered into force: the private prosecutor and other persons whose rights and interests are affected in the court decision, as well as the general prosecutor, the prosecutor of the subject of the Russian Federation and the military prosecutor, and their deputies.