A Dissertation submitted to Academy of Advocacy of Ukraine for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Law in Specialty 12.00.09. "Criminal Procedure and Criminology; Forensic Examination; Operational Search Activity". Kyiv, 2018. The Dissertation defense at a Viva Voce will be held at the Dissertation Committee of Academy of Advocacy of Ukraine.
The dissertation examines the history of the development and establishment of the institution of appellate review of judicial decisions in criminal proceedings in the pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet times. On the basis of the analysis of the sources of domestic and foreign scholars, a comprehensive study of the modern institute of appeal process of court decisions in criminal proceedings was carried out, the notion of appeal process was formulated and the signs were established that delimit the appeal process of court decisions from other types of processes in criminal proceedings.
The heterogeneity of the concepts of the grounds for appeal process and the grounds for the revocation or amendment of the challenged court decision has been proved, since the grounds for appeal process and the grounds for changing or canceling a court decision do not coincide in time. It has been established that non-compliance with the procedural procedure, which may result in appeal proceedings, entails certain procedural sanctions, which makes it impossible to verify the court decision by the court of appellate instance, despite the possible existence of grounds for the revocation or amendment of the contested court decision.
On the basis of the analysis of the existing criminal procedural legislation and judicial practice, features of the process of proof at the stage of appeal process of court decisions are revealed, and it is established that, based on the requirements of Part 3 of Art. 404 of the CPC, the court of appeals has limited ability to review a court decision in the part of a re-examination of the circumstances of the case that requires further scientific research.
It is established that the assessment of the evidence by the court of appeal, which appeared after the adoption of the challenged sentence, is the right of the court of appellate instance, and not its duty, since the current CPC does not establish the criteria that must be guided by the court of appellate instance when deciding on research and evaluation of new evidence. It is substantiated that the assessment of new evidence by the court of appellate instance is carried out in order to ascertain whether such evidence may affect the findings of the court and if such evidence does not affect the findings of the court, then there is no need to re-examine all other evidence together with new evidence, as the court of appeal is not deprived of the opportunity to substantiate its conclusions, including on the basis of the circumstances already established by the court of first instance. It is proved that the current CPC does not provide for a procedural mechanism that would allow the appellate court to determine the necessary amount of evidence for research that has already been assessed by the local court based on the principle of sufficiency if the new evidence may affect the findings of the appellate court.
It is proposed to have the classification of legal and factual grounds for the abolition or modification of a court decision. Such legal grounds include violations of the substantive law (misapplication of the law of Ukraine on criminal liability under Article 413 of the CPC), as well as violations of the procedural law, which, in turn, are divided into those which are unconditional grounds for the annulment of a court decision from sending a case for a new trial without checking such violations for the possibility of influencing the legality and reasonableness of a court decision, and violating the rules of procedural law (conditional); the significance of their influence on the legality of judgement is determined by checking such violations during the trial in the court of appeal. It is proved that the discrepancy of the punishment imposed by the court with the severity of a criminal offense and the person of the accused, as one of the grounds for changing or canceling a court decision by the court of appeal, has signs of both legal and factual reasons for the annulment or modification of a court decision.
The own classification of the types of decisions of the court of appellate instance is presented, according to which the decisions of the appellate court are divided into: a)decisions confirming the fulfillment of the tasks of criminal proceedings by a local court (leaving the decision of the appellate court unaltered); b)decisions which state the failure to achieve the purpose of criminal proceedings by the court of first instance (the abolition of the decision and the appointment of a new trial in the court of first instance); c)decisions confirming non-achievement of the purpose of criminal procee
