Convergence of private and public law in the sphere of criminal legal proceedings

The subject of the article was the identification of the main directions and results of the convergence of private and criminal law in the field of criminal justice. The purpose of the article was to sum up the results of the development in domestic science of a set of views on the process of convergence of private and public law in the field of criminal justice. The main subject of the analysis was the conceptual apparatus, which reflected changes in ideas about the measure of private and public in the mechanism of criminal procedure regulation. The author of the article tried to overcome dogmatic obstacles to strengthen private law values in the domestic criminal procedural culture, including ideas about a contractual method for resolving issues related to the conduct and completion of a criminal case. The main dogmatic obstacle is the postulate about the dominance of the public law principle, interpreted in the investigative sense. The investigative ideology hinders the convergence of private and public law in domestic criminal procedure science. The main areas of application of the author's developments are seen as «evidence law» and «law of accusation», as the backbone institutions of Russian criminal procedure law. It is in them that the essence of the Russian type of criminal process is embodied. Changes in these institutions are significant in terms of the degree of penetration of the private principle into their public law nature. The author comes to the conclusion that the convergence of private and public law in the field of criminal proceedings manifested itself in a number of sub-institutions, including private and private-public types of prosecution, alternative outcomes of a criminal case on some non-rehabilitating grounds, a pre-trial agreement on cooperation, a special procedure for considering a criminal affairs. All these institutions stand on two «super-institutions» of procedural law: accusation and proof. To some extent, both of these institutions were affected by the convergence of private and public law in the field of criminal justice. The conclusions made by the author contribute to the development of the general doctrine of the convergence of private and public law in the field of criminal justice. He makes specific proposals for the modernization of the institutions of prosecution and proof in the light of the concepts of «contract».