Violation of the law inevitably entails the prosecution of the offender. Since crimes are of varying severity with different consequences, the punishment must be appropriate. It is on the basis of this inference that litigation has a fundamental classification. In this article we will consider the concept and types of legal proceedings of the Russian Federation.
What does the term “legal proceedings” mean?
Legal proceedings are legal proceedings that include the rules established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the procedure for the consideration and resolution of cases in judicial instances. The laws of the country strictly spell out the types of proceedings and their procedural steps.
Among the stages can be identified:
- initiation of proceedings (preparation);
- court proceedings;
- sentencing or decision, which takes effect after a certain time, if the decision is not appealed.
The court, as a rule, cannot become the initiator of the proceedings. To initiate legal proceedings, legal grounds and an official appeal to the court of citizens (persons) interested in this process or organizations authorized for this (for example, law enforcement agencies) are required. The initiative of the appeal may be presented in the form of a lawsuit, complaint, indictment, etc.
Types of legal proceedings in the Russian Federation
The Constitution of the Russian Federation strictly delimits the classification of forms of litigation. According to Art. 118 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, there are 4 types of proceedings:
- Constitutional - monitors the proper execution and compliance of acts of the current Constitution.
- Civil. This group is the most extensive and along with civil cases, it includes various types of arbitration proceedings, the subject of which is the protection of the rights of economic agents.
- Administrative, the scope of which is an offense of severity lower than criminal.
- Criminal - considers the most dangerous crimes for society (criminal).
Constitutional proceedings
Justice in the field of constitutional processes is administered by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the competence and main tasks of which include monitoring the compliance of the issued normative acts with the country's main bill. If the court establishes that the normative act or part thereof is contrary to the Constitution, the person or body that issued the act is obliged to cancel the bill or make appropriate adjustments.
There are several features that distinguish all other types of legal proceedings from constitutional. In addition to the fact that the Constitutional Court considers a narrow range of issues, the decision taken by this court does not enter into force after a certain time, but immediately after the announcement. Also, the verdict is considered final, not requiring confirmation of third parties and authorities, and it can not be appealed.
Types of civil proceedings in the Russian Federation
Civil proceedings administer justice in the field of private law, that is, it considers cases arising between citizens of the Russian Federation, persons (individuals or legal entities). Authorized instances in this area are arbitration courts and courts of general jurisdiction.
Depending on the subject of legal relations of the private sector, it is possible to conditionally distinguish the proceedings of civil (cases of individuals) and arbitration (cases of legal entities) proceedings. Types of civil proceedings, according to the procedural code of the country, are as follows:
- Claim proceedings. It is based on the principle of competition, which consists in upholding their claims by each of the parties and challenging the claims of the opposite side. The plaintiff (filing lawsuit) and the defendant always appear in the lawsuit.
- Order proceedings differ from lawsuits in that there is no dispute in it; it considers cases of citizens with debts. This type of trial is documented based on a court order (order issued by a judge), which states the recovery of property or money from the debtor.
- Special production. It differs from other types in that only one party participates in it, and serves to change the legal status of some processes. Examples of special proceedings are the consideration of such cases as recognition of a citizen as missing (dead), adoption of a child, recognition of a person’s incapacity, forced hospitalization of a patient in a psychiatric clinic, recognition of property as unowned and transfer of ownership of it to municipal authorities, etc.
- The production of cases arising from public processes. The scope of cases of this type of proceedings includes: cases of citizens challenging certain regulatory acts, decisions or actions of local authorities or other state authorities, as well as other cases from public legal relations, the consideration of which falls within the competence of a civil court.
In the private sector of legal relations, cases of legal entities are considered by arbitration proceedings, a concept whose types are intertwined with civil proceedings. But there are differences: some arbitration processes fall into an independent group, such as considering bankruptcy cases (in other words, legal incapability of a legal entity), while recognizing the incapacity of an individual is part of a special civil litigation group. Thus, the types of arbitration proceedings are as follows:
- Claim.
- Special.
- Production of cases arising from public.
- Bankruptcy proceedings.
- Other matters.
Administrative proceedings
The scope of administrative justice includes offenses qualified by the legislature as socially harmful misconduct. This can be petty hooliganism, violation of traffic rules, damage to someone else's property, etc. As a punishment for administrative misconduct, there may be a fine, deprivation of certain rights, coercion to community service.
Criminal proceedings
Criminal offenses qualify as socially dangerous crimes and are characterized by the greatest degree of severity than administrative offenses. Accordingly, the punishment for such acts is more serious - the deprivation of liberty of the offender, which in some cases, due to extenuating circumstances, can become conditional (that is, without isolation of the offender in the place of deprivation of liberty).
Types of criminal proceedings are divided into private-adversarial proceedings, in which one side requires criminal prosecution of the other and public-adversarial proceedings, the prosecutor of which is the state body.