On methods for organizing the differentiation of procedural forms in preliminary proceedings

At the national level, efforts have long been underway to identify the most effective model for differentiating procedural forms of criminal investigation; however, for just as long, these efforts have continued to boil down to establishing, alongside the main form, a specific simplified form of proceedings. The unsuccessful experience accumulated through this approach raises the question of whether there are other ways to organize the differentiation of procedural forms in pretrial proceedings. These were examined in detail using the example of variations in the structure of procedural forms of investigation in the models of three countries—Russia, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. The patterns identified through a comparison of national experiences have made it possible to substantiate the existence of two dialectically linked methods for organizing the differentiation of procedural forms in pretrial proceedings: the parallel and the unified approaches. To date, in Russia—which has adhered to parallel differentiation—the requirements for its organization have not been fully met. A number of problems associated with this approach have become chronic, which has sparked interest in the possibilities of organizing unified differentiation within the Russian pretrial process. It appears that the necessary prerequisites for this already exist in Russia, stemming from the technical nature of the current differentiation. Restructuring it could not only provide the desired solution but also open up prospects for rethinking the foundations of all procedural forms of the preliminary proceedings.