AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE THEORY IN RUSSIA. Part 3. The presumption of innocence in our time

In the final part of an essay, the author scrutinizes reasonableness of the legislative decision to include the M. S. Strogovich’s presumption of innocence formula among criminal procedure principles. He finds out that the M. S. Strogovich’s presumption of innocence formula does not match the criteria for considering the concept a criminal procedure principle and couldn’t be employed in the fact-finding process. It is shown that attempts to regard the innocence presumption formula as a principle have a detrimental effect. However, if the presumption of innocence has a pre-revolutionary meaning, it would make sense. The innocence presumption is one of the hypotheses which should be tested over the criminal investigation. Thus, there are two opposite hypotheses, namely the presumption of innocence and the presumption of guilt. Testing of these ones allows investigators to establish the circumstances of Art. 73 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code. A comparison between Art. 8 Para. 2 and Art. 14 Para. 1 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code shows that the presumption of innocence content is absorbed by the principle of administration of justice by the court alone. And that is one more rationale for excluding the presumption from the list of principles.