Criminal prosecution and accusation in the system of criminal procedure functions

Taking into account the analysis of doctrinal ideas on criminal procedure functions in the criminal proceedings, the comparison of definitive norms in Article 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the author of the given article denies the identity of the functions «criminal prosecution» and «accusation»as well as the categories that specify them. The author also criticizes the position of the legislator who formulates the definition of the parties to the processin paragraph 45 of Art. 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation where both these categories are said to be synonyms. The author of the article provides arguments justifying the various areas of applying these categories in the text of the criminal procedure law. From the point of view of the mechanism of implementing the principle of adversarial parties the category «accusation» means the main criminalprocedure function, therefore the sphere of using this term should be called «functional adversarial one». In the context of paragraph 22 of Art. 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation the content «accusation» is said to be much narrower than the term «criminal prosecution». In such context the accusation is said to be as a component of a structure that is more complex and broader one in terms of means, forms and duration of criminalprocedure activities, that is «criminal prosecution» which has all the features of a criminal procedure function. The author of the articleoffers to name this sphere of use of the term «accusation»as «functional-structural one » that reflects the structure of the criminal prosecution as a criminal procedure function.