The article analyzes a number of legal sources of the Russian Federation devoted to criminal law and criminal procedure policies; it identifies and summarizes information about the development of theoretical thought on the matter. The author presents three presidential legislative packages, which include a new criminal legal strategy expressing qualitative changes in Russian society and satisfying the need for its modernization and development. The author observes that in the last ten years criminal procedure policy has undergone major changes, which have become an integral part of the judicial system modernization process and the criminal procedure legislation of the Russian Federation. The reforms concerned criminal procedure institutions connected to the reorganization of the inquiry, the creation of the Investigation Committee, the prosecutor’s powers, the use of measures of restraint, initiation of criminal proceedings on tax crimes, dismissal of criminal proceedings (prosecution) of economic crimes, changes in supervisory procedures, development of conciliation procedures. Also, increased attention in the article is paid to the content, the main features and trends in modern criminal procedure policy. Early discussions and the practical application of the criminal procedure legislation showed that the Russian legal community reacted rather ambiguously to a number of its innovations. The legal community has divided into supporters, who generally approve of the CPC, in favor of “Americanization” of the Russian Criminal Procedure and opponents of many innovations, advocating the preservation of the existing domestic criminal process in line with the continental tradition, characteristic not only for the Russian Federation but also for a number of European countries. The author states that since the implementation of the CPC until the present time, both academics and practitioners have expressed a great deal of justified criticism about it.
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