The object of the study is the legal relationships that arise, develop and terminate during the prosecution of the prosecution in the pre-trial stage of the investigation of the indictment in its initial (pre-trial) form. Purpose: to provide a scientific definition of the initial (pre-trial) form of criminal prosecution implemented by the prosecution party at the stage of pre-trial investigation, to disclose its content, purpose, objectives, principles and criminal procedural order of implementation. Methods: general theoretical and special scientific methods of cognition, namely, dialectical, historical-legal, formal-logical, logical-semantic, logical-legal, statistical, methods of structural-functional analysis, modeling, system analysis, etc. Theoretical and practical results, scientific novelty: scientific definition of initial (pre-trial) form of prosecution provided by the party of the prosecution in the stage of pre-trial investigation as “violation of the charge and official registration of the indictment”; formulated the author's version of the purpose, objectives and principles of the indictment in its initial (pre-trial) form; the procedural mechanism of the prosecution function in its first initial (pre-trial) form has been determined and its main constituent elements have been disclosed, which give it a systemic and dynamic character; the necessity to exclude from item 1 of Art. 131-1 of the Constitution of Ukraine the term "public prosecution" with its replacement by the term "state prosecution", since the first reflects only the people's, public order of the prosecution, and the second - the legal order of realization of the state function of the prosecution due to one of the tasks facing the state (counteraction to crime); outlines a comprehensive list of participants in criminal proceedings who must necessarily be part of the prosecution at the stage of pre-trial investigation; it is proposed to exclude from the articles of the CPC of Ukraine a provision according to which the investigating judge is entitled to conduct judicial and control proceedings with mandatory participation of the defense party in full force and with only one representative of the prosecution party - a prosecutor who puts the parties at a disadvantage and destroys the principles themselves competitiveness of the criminal process. Practical value: conclusions and suggestions can be used in the research field for further research on the initial (pre-trial) form of the prosecution, which is realized in the pre-trial investigation; in legislative activity, for improvement of criminal procedural legislation of Ukraine on realization of the charge in its initial (pre-trial) form; in the field of law enforcement as a recommendation on the activities of the prosecution party in the pre-trial investigation. Scope of application: in the educational process in the study of the course of criminal proceedings and special courses, in the preparation of textbooks and scientific and practical manuals, the development of methodological recommendations.
