A civil claim in a criminal case. Theory and practice

    Between 2020–2024 International Relations published a number of monographs which examined, amongst others, matters connected to the issuing and examination of civil lawsuits in criminal cases.

    This work is an in-depth examination of these matters. It also looks into the different issues connected to civil proceedings that had not been analyzed in works published beforehand.

    The existing theoretical views in legal doctrine on the institution of civil proceedings are put forward in this monograph through a prism of contemporary legal practice, which, despite the adoption by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (RF) on 13th October 2020 of Ruling 23 On the practice of Court Consideration of Civil Lawsuits in Criminal Cases, continues to reveal gaping holes in necessary legal regulation that are recognized by all procedural legal specialists without exception.

    In the study of criminal procedural law there is a prevailing view that the provisions of the RF Civil Code of the in the part not regulated by the RF Criminal Code, are subject to (on the condition that they do not contradict the latter), subsidiary application to civil proceedings.

    Yet it is important to understand how this theoretic construct is carried out (and whether it is carried out at all) in legal practice, which in the conditions of silence on the part of the legislator, both regarding the possibility of such application as in his requirements and limitations, as a rule avoids any direct references to the provisions of RF Civil Code and RF Arbitrage Code, while applying some of those provisions in fact.

    Moreover, such an application is of a very selective nature. As legal practice demonstrates, many RF Civil Code regulations and institutions, which do not contradict in any way the regulations contained in the RF Criminal Code, nevertheless are not applied in the legal process.

    According to the authors, the reason for this state of affairs is that civil lawsuits are not considered, neither by legislators nor legal practice to be lawsuits as such, but rather they are merely applications at core, such as an application for legal costs, which any person suffering from crime can submit.

    This explains why in practice, RF Civil Code and RF Arbitrage Code provisions that regulate litigation are not applied in civil lawsuits, apart from in rare exceptions. It is impossible to apply them to what is not deemed a lawsuit.

    With that in mind, and on the basis of analysed legal practice, there is further substantiation for the aforementioned view on the necessity to simplify the order of compensation of damage caused by crime, in particular: it is suggested that the compensation of such damage is carried out on the basis of an application by the injured party, if the defendant does not object to complying with such an application.

    If not, the civil legal dispute in question is resolved in the place equipped to resolve it, specifically by civil or arbitrage proceedings, which allows to remove any imbalance in the legal position of parties, caused by not applying a number of provisions and not involving institutions for civil and arbitrage proceedings in the criminal process, which in their entirety express the principle of the equality of parties in civil legal disputes.