Historical and Legal Analysis of the Development of the Institution of Inquiry in Russian Criminal Process

The article examines the development of the institution of inquiry in the Russian criminal procedural law, as well as the relationship of inquiry with the historical forms (models) of the criminal process that influenced its development. The purpose of this article is to analyze the development of the institution of inquiry in Russia both through the prism of the development of criminal proceedings in general, and through the development of socio-economic relations in various historical stages of Russian history. So the analysis on the development of the preliminary investigation and the reasons for its differentiation into preliminary investigation and inquiry in various economic and social conditions has been conducted. The development of the institution of inquiry was to be considered not only as a stage of preliminary investigation, but also as operational-search activity or pre-investigation check. At the same time, the development of the institution of inquiry was considered within the framework of the following historical stages: up to 1860; from 1860 to 1917; from 1917 to the present. Also presented and investigated not only the peculiarities of the production of inquiry by the state authorities in different periods of the history of Russia, but also an assessment of their influence on the development of the institution of inquiry was made. The conclusion that was made based on the result of the work carried out is that studies of the stages of the development of the criminal process must be carried out not only with the use of a formal legal research method, but also with the use of dialectics, which can make it possible to identify the causes and prerequisites for the development of the criminal process as a whole and in particular, the institute of inquiry in different periods of the history of Russia. This conclusion follows from the fact that at different periods of time the state authorities had different functions and acted in different socio-economic conditions, and inquiry, as an institution of criminal procedural law, was not only differentiated, but also became a form of preliminary investigation.

inquiry, criminal process, preliminary investigation, bodies of inquiry, abbreviated form of inquiry, historical forms of criminal process, socio-economic formation