Conclusion of a pre-trial cooperation agreement in Russian criminal procedure: legal and methodological approaches

The legal regulation of the procedural institution, named by the Russian legislation as "Special procedure for making a judgment at the conclusion of a pre-trial cooperation agreement" is analyzed in the article. The author comes to the conclusion that rather vague perspective of judicial examination of a criminal case and the absence of provisions on the liability of government agencies in case of a breach of agreement signed by the prosecutor should be considered as main drawbacks of the agreement. The author suggests delegating the prosecutor's responsibility to conclude a pre-trial cooperation agreement to the court i.e. to the participant of a criminal procedure, authorized not to supervise, but to create necessary agreement terms for realization by parties of their procedural duties and rights granted to them.