It's high time we remembered the forgotten socialist lawfulness

Purpose: Research into the problem of absence of lawfulness in contemporary criminal procedure. Methodology: The historical and legal method and the formal legal method were used. Results: The article underlines the progressivity for the past years of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, authored by M.S.Strogovich. The article also underlines the relevance of the principles enshrined in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, which are ignored in contemporary criminal procedure. The article outlines the distinctive features of the forgotten lawfulness and the deficiencies of contemporary investigation, the principles of dealing with criminal cases, problems of appeal and cassation case-law, propositions for law amendments. The author speaks about the necessity of full and objective investigation and processing of criminal cases, about the unacceptability of application of principles of «sufficiency of evidence», «guilt of the accused», «procedural economy», «rationality», «optimization» and, as a result, «efficiency» of justice simplified...