Legal Assistance Of A Lawyer In Checking A Crime Report

The development of the legal regulation of ensuring the right to qualified legal assistance in the criminal procedure legislation of the Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States has contributed to the expansion of guarantees for qualified legal assistance at the first stages of a criminal case – the stage of criminal proceedings. The authors note that further improvement of the mechanism for ensuring this constitutional right at the stage of criminal prosecution is necessary in terms of clarifying the scope and content of the procedural rights of a lawyer who provides qualified legal assistance to participants in criminal proceedings in checking reports of a crime. Legislation on advocacy and the emerging law enforcement practice allow offering the necessary amount of procedural rights of a lawyer in providing qualified legal assistance to the principal at this stage of the criminal case. An analysis of law enforcement practice indicates numerous violations of the right of participants in criminal proceedings to legal assistance of a lawyer: non-clarification or inadequate explanation of this right to participants in criminal proceedings by an official who checks the report of a crime; refusal to a lawyer to exercise his procedural rights in providing legal assistance, etc. The consolidation in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the procedural status of a lawyer as an independent participant in a criminal process will help ensure constitutional right to receive qualified legal assistance in criminal proceedings, in particular, when checking a report of a crime.