On drawbacks in regulating the first phase of cassational proceedings in procedural law of Russia

Introduction: in the article, disputable questions of regulating the first phase of cassational proceedings according to the Russian procedural law are considered. Purpose: to conduct a comparative analysis of the Civil Procedural Code, Administrative Procedural Code, Administrative Court Proceedings Code and Criminal Procedure Code rules that regulate cassational procedures; to find drawbacks in the process of regulating the first phase of cassational procedures in criminal procedural law and procedural law of Russia on the whole. Methods: the research is based on a complex of methods of scientific cognition, with the dialectical method being the major one. In the article, general scientific methods (dialectics, analysis and synthesis, abstracting and concretizing) and specific scientific methods (comparative law research and technical legal method) were used. Results: the imperfection in regulating the first phase of cassational procedures has been revealed in the fact that preliminary study of a complaint or a proposal is only conducted by a judge of the corresponding cassational court, who solely takes a decision on whether to transfer those complaints and proposals to the court hearing or to dismiss (articles 401.7-401.11 of the Criminal Procedure Code; 380.1-384 of the Civil Procedural Code; 323-325 of the Administrative Court Proceedings Code; 291.6-291.9 of the Administrative Procedural Code). The legislator does not properly provide a unified approach to the regulation of the inter-branch institution of cassational proceedings in procedural law of Russia. This leads to the lack of consistency in the court practice, resulting in the unjustified infringement of rights and legitimate interests of a person, and groundlessly limits the access to cassation in different spheres of court proceedings. In general, there is no equal level ofprotection of the rights of citizens in the country, their equality before the court and the law is not observed. Conclusions: in procedural law of Russia and in practice of its application as referred to inter-branch institutions (including cassational proceedings as its part), it is necessary to develop a unified approach, to the first phase of cassational proceedings in particular. The access to cassation should be stricter than that to appeal, but it should not be extremely complicated. The rules of a "strict" access should be justified and should not be significantly different for all the forms of court proceedings. At present, according to the current legislation, access for citizens to cassation is most difficult in criminal courts (as compared to civil, arbitration, administrative legal proceedings). The criterion of the considerable violation of substantive law and (or) procedural law rule that influenced the result of the court procedures and led to the infringement of the person's rights and legitimate interests, should be defined collectively but not solely by a judge outside the court hearing, as it takes place now in accordance with the Criminal Procedural Code, Civil Procedural Code and Administrative Court Proceedings Code of the Russian Federation.