The Legal Regulation of Criminal Procedural Relations in the Digital Era

The article claims that digitalization spreads actively in criminal procedural relations; it influences criminal proceedings essentially. There arises a necessity to conduct doctrinal research of the existing development patterns and further functioning of law and the state legal sphere of Russian society's life in the digital era, and to elaborate science-based instruments and models of the legal regulation of criminal procedural relations. The influence of digital technologies on the development of the current Russian legislation is noted, which provides for different possibilities for subjects of criminal procedural relations. The authors pay a great attention to the fact that these relations call for a more specified regulation of subjects' rights and duties, for an improvement of mechanisms and ways of their cooperation, for a definition of latitude limits of judicial and investigative bodies. The authors analyzed the content of certain statements of law relating to the existing requirements applied to documents filed during criminal proceedings, which allowed making some proposals on improving them. The situation in criminal procedural science relating to electronic evidence and features of proof during trials is described. The authors come to the conclusion that there is a necessity to further improve the existing approaches to the legal regulation of criminal procedural relations connected with the wide use of digital technologies in criminal proceedings. It is proven that the definition of principles of using digital technologies in criminal proceedings is crucial for controlling the reforming of criminal proceedings. The application of these principles is a measure to provide for the right to a fair trial for everyone; it is a guarantee of observance of rights and legal interests of subjects of criminal procedural relations and of provision of access to justice. Considering the analysis of foreign legislation, statements of Russian scholars on the development prospects of Russian criminal procedure in the digital era, and legal practice in Russia and abroad, the authors come to a conclusion that the tendency of the further reforming of criminal procedure will be the extension of possibilities to use digital technologies with due account of their accessibility to the participants in the trial. Elaborated and adopted criminal procedural no= should have a proper mechanism for regulating the new public relations arising due to digitalization. A prospective direction of criminal procedure improvement is seen in a gradual transition from the written form to the digital one and in cooperation of all participants in the criminal trial in the "paper-free" format, which eliminates paper work.