The work of the prosecutor is one of the types of state activities aimed at protecting the rule of law. The task of every professional in this field is to ensure the rule of law and respect for human rights, freedoms and interests throughout the territory of the Russian state. Prosecutorial supervision is fully regulated by federal law, therefore it is carried out only within the legal sphere.
What is prosecutorial control and what is the role of response acts?
It is worth noting that control by the state is carried out by many other bodies. Each of them has its own competence, the scope of authority, clearly defined by regulatory documents. These bodies also have their own defined areas of supervision and control, i.e., the areas of activity. Unlike these state structures, supervision has practically unlimited spheres of influence in all spectra of social relations, if we talk about the boundaries of a single territorially integrated country.
The act of prosecutorial response is a document that has sufficient legal force, which is actually a "tool" for the activities of these bodies. Preventing violations of laws and eliminating violations that have already taken place are the main tasks that face them in the course of the exercise of official powers by each employee.
Acts of prosecutorial response are several types of documents:
- protest;
- representation;
- a decision to institute proceedings on an administrative offense;
- warning about the inadmissibility of breaking the law.
Detailed consideration of the prosecutor's protest: the purpose of the document
The first type of document is protest. This is one of the acts that is prepared by the public prosecutor himself or his direct deputy, in no case contradicts the current Constitution of the Russian Federation, other laws and does not violate human rights. A prosecutor’s protest is a response to an unlawful document issued by an official or authority. It can be filed with the violator, to higher authorities or in a judicial procedure provided for by the legislative framework.
As a rule, the prosecutor’s protest carries with it the requirement to urgently eliminate the contradictions and inconsistencies of the “letter of the law” that are present in the issued normative legal act. In addition, the public prosecutor has the right to demand from the body or person who issued the unlawful act that the document be brought into maximum compliance with federal law or its final cancellation.
All types of prosecutorial response used in the activities of bodies are public requirements, statements, evidence. Therefore, the task of bringing a protest to the offending body or the official who issued the act, according to the laws of the Russian Federation, is directly in front of the prosecutor and his direct deputy. If it is necessary to file a document with a court or a higher official in accordance with federal regulatory legal acts, only the above persons can do this.
Briefly about the structure of the prosecution hierarchy in protests
The decision of the public prosecutor at the federal district level to protest the legal acts of central departments and ministries is impossible. Only the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, as well as persons replacing him, are entitled to appeal such acts that do not comply with the laws of the state. Accordingly, prosecutors are empowered to protest the legal documents of the executive bodies of the relevant entity that control the structures of the relevant link.
Moreover, the acts of reaction of prosecutorial supervision from above are binding on all subordinate prosecutors. In this case, the public prosecutor has the right, within the limits of his competence, to bring protests to both bodies of his own level and lower ones. On the contrary, it cannot be. Meanwhile, it is allowed to prepare a draft by a lower-ranking prosecutor in the event that he discovers an illegal act of officials or a body within the competence of a higher-level prosecutor.
What is the representation of the prosecutor?
The next act of the prosecutor’s response is the representation of the prosecutor. The purpose of this document is to eliminate legal violations, the factors provoking them, as well as the circumstances and conditions that accompany them. The powerful legislative base and the whole list of documents issued by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, in particular the Order of the RF State Prosecutor’s Office of 1999 “On Strengthening Prosecutorial Supervision of Compliance with the Law when Solving Applications, Messages and Other Information about Committed and Prepared Crimes”, allows using this method of combating breaking the law as a representation.
All samples of acts of prosecutorial response to violations of state bodies have an approved form. They are introduced in the same way as a protest by a prosecutor or a person replacing him. Bring a submission to a government agency or to a person holding an appropriate position or empowered to review and eliminate the violations committed. The submission of the prosecutor in any case is considered without delay, in the next 3 days. In order to make a submission, the public prosecutor must be prepared to study the materials of the previous audit. The only basis for presenting a prosecutor's submission is the established facts of violations.
What does the representation of the prosecutor include?
Any submission made by the prosecutor, regardless of federal level, contains the following information:
- The official or body to whom the act of prosecutorial response is sent is indicated.
- Information sources that contain data on specific violations of the law.
- The direct characteristic of violations, including consideration and analysis of the causes, conditions and circumstances that contributed to the error in the regulatory legal acts.
- Prosecutorial requirements to eliminate violations and fundamental circumstances, factors.
- Instructions of the prosecutor regarding the procedure and milestones for consideration by the body or person-violator of the submission.
Additional content of the submission of the prosecutor
The text of the submission may include the recommendations of the prosecutor regarding the elimination of the violation. In any case, they should have a legal orientation, not bear the nature of the action encroaching on the management process in a particular area of activity, often designated as operational-economic.
Offers may also come from the prosecutor to eliminate the circumstances that provoked the violation of the law. Here we are talking in most cases about legal “inconsistencies” in the technical, organizational, managerial and economic fields.
Such acts of prosecutorial response (the types of such documents are classified as secondary regulatory documents) are drawn up in accordance with the conclusions of narrow-profile specialists in relevant areas, other audit materials, audits, etc.
Features of inclusion by the prosecutor of control periods
With regard to the requirements of the prosecutor, aimed at the speedy elimination of the causes of offenses, they often contain the question of bringing to account material or disciplinary responsibility of those responsible for the incident. Naturally, in the actions of violators there are no signs of administrative misconduct or a criminal offense.
If you examine some samples of acts of prosecutorial response, especially the presentation, then in most of them you cannot find a detailed description and mechanism of legal regulation of the procedure for considering the submitted document. However, it is probably not worth talking about the fact that the document is considered without delay. The deadline for consideration is also not exactly set. Meanwhile, it is clearly indicated that specific measures to eliminate the offenses that have taken place, as well as the factors associated with them, should be taken within the next 30 days.
The month allotted for the adoption of any decisions and actions for the body or person-violator, as a rule, is perceived by the responding party as a period for consideration. Long paperwork can only be avoided if a clear explanation of the dates and dates is included in the presentation. Only with the deliberate disregard of the requirements can the prosecutor have sufficiently good reason to initiate proceedings on an administrative offense.
Characteristics and scope of the decision of the prosecutor
Acts of prosecutorial response, the types of which deserve detailed consideration, are diverse. The list can be continued with the following necessary document, which is the result of the activities of the prosecution authorities. In this case, it is a decision. A procurator has the right to issue a normative legal act of this type in the course of supervision in various areas of economic, health, socio-cultural, transport and other areas of public relations. The decision of the prosecutor is an important act, indispensable in case of participation in procedural activities in criminal cases.
After all, the prosecutor, exercising its oversight functions over the observance of the legislative framework of the Russian Federation by state top-level bodies, committees, services, executive authorities, local self-government, military administration, and control bodies, has all the powers to make a decision to institute criminal proceedings or to begin production process of an administrative offense.
The decision of the prosecutor in a criminal case, as well as the first results of the consideration, are taken by law enforcement authorities, which must be stated in writing.
Prosecutors or officials replacing them are required to make a sample decision if it is necessary to release an unlawfully detained person in places of deprivation of liberty of a compulsory nature, as well as in a forensic psychiatric institution with illegal unjustified premises.
The prosecutor’s ruling is mandatory for the administration of the institution, the executive judicial bodies working with persons whose sentence is not related to deprivation or restriction of liberty. It is also worth noting that the prosecutor has enough authority to independently make any procedural decision during criminal proceedings at any of the pre-trial stages.
A sample resolution may combine decisions that require participants in the process to perform certain actions. For instance:
- recognize civil defendant as a civil defendant;
- attach important material evidence to the criminal case;
- apply an objective, according to the prosecutor, preventive measure.
What is the warning of the prosecutor
Another means of prosecutorial supervision should be called a warning aimed at preventing violations of laws. If there is evidence of planned unlawful actions, persons holding senior posts will be ordered. The sample document has a specific form approved by law. In writing, a warning is most often sent from the prosecutor or his deputy to prevent acts of extremist activity.
Only if there is objective, reliable and confirmed information about upcoming illegal actions, the prosecutor or his deputies, as well as lower-level prosecutors, send a warning to persons. The document includes:
- confirmed information about the planned criminal act;
- specific grounds for announcing this act of prosecutorial response;
- list of committed violations, as well as the period for their elimination (at least 2 months).
In 1999, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation sent a directive “On the application of a warning on the inadmissibility of a violation of the law”. This document describes in detail all possible conditions for issuing a prescription. Prosecutors of all levels, as well as the military and specialized, use this regulatory act as the main measure for the prevention of misconduct.
As well as protest, resolution and submission, warning is carried out exclusively by the main employees of the prosecutor's office. It is worth noting that prosecutors use the warning as such in order to oversee the full implementation of laws and by-laws.
What is the need for prosecutorial acts?
Regardless of which specific act of prosecutorial response and supervision is directed to a particular body, organization, etc., it must be completed within the prescribed time, as it is subject to rigorous execution.
The areas of activity and supervision of the prosecutor are quite wide. These include:
- control over the implementation of laws;
- supervision in order to observe human rights and freedoms;
- control over the activities of investigative bodies, inquiries, and the operational-search sector;
- supervision of the unquestioning implementation of normative legal acts by administrations of districts and cities;
- control over the implementation of the legislative framework by administrations of places of deprivation of liberty and institutions of forced detention.
In the event of deliberate failure to comply with the prosecutor’s requirements, justified by sufficient powers, any of the ignored acts of reaction - a protest, order, order (a sample of each of them can be found as an appendix to the relevant legislative act) is fraught with a fine, the average amount of which is 1-3 thousand rubles (according to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).