The legal status of persons to whom the rights of a deceased victim are passed

The article explores the issues of the legal status of relatives and close relatives of the deceased victim in criminal proceedings. Examines the problems of determining the circle of persons who can transfer the rights of the deceased victim, their criminal procedural status depending on the cause of death of the victim. Attention is paid to some issues of content of the legal status of such participants in the criminal process. Various approaches to determining the legal status of relatives and close relatives of the deceased victim in legal literature have been analyzed, the positions of the highest judicial instances, as well as judicial and investigative practice, have been studied. The necessity of recognizing these persons as victims irrespective of the cause of death of the deceased is substantiated. The ways of improving the norms of the criminal procedural law have been worked out, the preconditions for adjusting the content not only of Article 42 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, but also of individual decisions of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation have been formed.