The Procedural Laboratory for Studying the Historical Types of Criminal Proceedings

The article is devoted to the study of historical types of criminal proceedings in a vertical direction. The foremost archetypes of criminal procedure, which laid the technological and methodological foundations for formation of the investigative, adversarial, and mixed types of criminal proceedings, were analyzed. Arguments are given in favor of the fact that the initial reference point for criminal proceedings is the accusatory-adversarial type. The appropriate legal examples from the legislation of Athens and Ancient Rome are referenced in the article. An attempt is made to prove three hypotheses about the modern types of criminal procedure, the sequential system about the models of criminal procedure. Consideration is given to the archetype. The debatable issue regarding the active and passive positions of judges in the resolution of criminal cases on their merits was considered. The author's position in favor of the role of a judge as a non-initiative arbitrator between the parties was appropriate and justified only in the times of the rise of Athens and Ancient Rome. The judicial compositions of each case consisted of several hundred judges, which made it possible to make the right decision. The judges themselves were from the people. In particular, this is why, before our era, there were no dubious statistics in court proceedings from the point of view of the adversarial principle. It further explains why there were both convictions and acquittals in sufficient numbers for a democratic state. The modern procedural role of a judge is often reduced to the personal neutral, but at the same time active investigation of the evidence is presented by the parties. Much attention is given to the modern type of criminal process, which is called mixed. This content is considered in two ways — as a symbiosis of investigative and adversarial types and also as a procedural duet of accusatory-adversarial and techno-centric models.