DISCLOSURE OF CRIMINAL OFFENSES AS A TASK OF CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

The article analyzes the concepts of disclosure and investigation of criminal offenses. Attention is drawn to the lack of a unified approach to their understanding, essence and content by scientists in the field of criminal process, criminology, the theory of operational and investigative activity, which requires further research. The article analyzes the works of scholars since the seventies of the last century which were devoted to the analysis of the concepts under consideration and their relationship with other categories of criminal procedure, criminalistics, and the theory of operational and investigative activities. The purpose of the article is defined, which consists in formulating proposals for defining the task of criminal proceedings as its disclosure, and in the article devoted to the clarification of terms, it is noted that the offense is considered disclosed when all the necessary circumstances for the adoption of the final procedural decision have been proven and it has gained legal force. It is noted that for a long time the concept of the disclosure of criminal offenses has firmly entered the scientific circulation and it was used in the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in 1960 to define one of the tasks of criminal justice. In the current Code of Criminal Procedure, the task of criminal proceedings is defined as “investigation”, which should be understood as a certain type of procedural activity that must end with the appropriate result, namely, the disclosure of the event of a criminal offense, which should be the task of criminal proceedings. Attention is drawn to the impracticality of considering “disclosure of an offense” in the criminalprocedural, forensic or operational-investigative sense. In order to evaluate the work of the relevant units involved in the work on the detection of offenses, it is better to use concepts that fully and accurately reflect their contribution to this activity: criminal offenses are detected; the suspicion has been reported; sent to the court with the relevant procedural document; corresponding final decisions have been adopted, which have entered into force. The conclusions substantiate the proposals for amendments to the current Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, in terms of defining the tasks of criminal proceedings.