The dissertation is the first in the national science special complex research of legal regulation of decision-making in criminal justice. The research work highlights the most characteristic features of criminal procedural decisions and formulates their definition. The system of procedural decisions in criminal justice is investigated and disclosed meaning of its composition, intra system connections and functioning. It also clarifies the functional purpose of procedural decisions in terms of the value of their legal regulation to ensure the rights and legitimate interests of the subjects of the criminal process.
Singled out features and proposed definition of decision-making process in criminal proceedings as a result of conducted analysis. The main approaches to determining the stages of decision-making are highlighted and the author's vision of the given process of law enforcement is presented. Found the place of decision-making among such elements of the subject of legal regulation in criminal proceedings, as general human rights, procedural status of participants in proceedings (procedural relations) and the procedure for criminal proceedings (procedural activities).
Atypical situations are analyzed in the course of making criminal procedural decisions and the features of each of them are singled out. The decision-making process by analogy is considered and its features are revealed in the application of the analogy of the law and the analogy of the principles. The basic stages of decision making by analogy are singled out. The study of decision-making using the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter – the ECtHR) was conducted and further developed scientific opinions, according to which, when applying for legal action, references can be made exclusively to the decisions of the ECtHR, which have Ukrainian translation. Based on the results, the theoretically substantiated proposals on improving the current criminal procedural legislation of Ukraine in this area are formulated. The peculiarities of jury trials are highlighted and got further development scientific position that as the jury trial can be called exclusively the Anglo-American model of public involvement in the administration of justice.
Features and the concept of the general rules of criminal procedural decision-making are defined, and how they differ from the general principles of criminal proceedings. On the basis of the analysis the general rules of criminal procedural decision-making are formulated, the non-compliance of which, results in the illegality of such decisions. It also proposes special rules for making decisions related to such unusual situations as decision-making by analogy, using the practice of the ECtHR and the administration of justice by jury.
The correlation between such concepts as “norm of law” and “legal norm”, as well as their delimitation in the form of expression, level of concreteness and fixing method (acquisition of normativity) are proposed. The general (characteristic of all norms of law), special (inherent in the norms of criminal procedural law) and specific features of the law norms that are regulating the criminal procedural decision-making are highlighted, as well as the author's definition of these norms is proposed. The content of law norms structure is discovered, its characteristic features are outlined and the definition of the concept “the structure of the norms of criminal procedural law” is formulated. The main approaches to the selection of elements in the middle of the structure are investigated and the scientific approach according to which the structure of the rules of law is variable is improved. Scientific advances have been further developed, according to which the elementary part of the system of legislation is the normative-legal rule and the justification that among the norms of law it is impossible to distinguish special norms.
The content and concept of the hypothesis of the rules of law that regulates the adoption of criminal procedural decisions, as well as the classification of them depending on the level of specification, availability or absence of life circumstances, as well as the number of life circumstances, are revealed. The main features of the disposition of the law norms that governs the criminal procedural decisions-making are given, they are classified according to the degree of certainty, the way of securing the rules of conduct and the branch origin of the legal regulations. The signs and concepts of sanctions of law norms that are regulating criminal procedural decision-making are determined, as well as their classification according to the way of securing the rules of conduct, the degree of certainty and the field of law, where the normative-legal rule that are part of its structure are located.
