Features of document preparation
The procedure for drawing up a report on the detection of signs of a crime is regulated by Art. 143 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation.
According to its contents, the document consists of:
- law enforcement officers;
- employees of operational investigative units;
- employees of the bodies of inquiry, prosecutor's office and preliminary investigation.
Drawing up official documentation of this type is the responsibility not only of employees authorized to initiate criminal cases, but also of other employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who witnessed a violation of the law. Regardless of time, position, location on the territory of the Russian Federation, every police officer is obliged to take measures to suppress the crime and report to the nearest police unit as soon as possible.
Many people confuse a report with a statement. Unlike a statement, the report does not contain demands to prosecute and punish the perpetrator. The document shows only the circumstances of the incident and the persons involved. It should also be noted that the report is drawn up on the basis of a message about the commission of a crime, and does not lay out the essence of the message in the report.
Article 143 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation states that a report can be evidence in a case, but only if it is certified by the signature of a law enforcement officer and contains comprehensive information about the signs of a violation, as well as the source of the information received. Without identifying a specific source, a police officer's written report will not be admissible evidence.
The exception is information about the source, which contains state secrets; such data cannot be fully indicated in the report. In this case, a written denunciation serves as a reason for starting criminal proceedings, but is not evidence in the case.
The procedure for filing a statement of crime under the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, Article 141
In Art. 143 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation with comments from the current edition sets out the principles of drawing up and submitting a report on the commission of a crime:
- The document can be drawn up after a report of an impending or committed crime. There is an exception to this point - sometimes, a report can be filed by an employee participating in operational-search activities who has determined the fact of preparation for a crime. In order to prevent a serious violation of the law, criminal proceedings may be initiated, for example, if the message contains the fact of preparation for a terrorist act.
- The denunciation sets out exclusively the objective side of the crime.
- Initially, it is necessary to verify the reliability of the information by interviewing witnesses, analyzing evidence, and only after that, if there is sufficient data, draw up a report on the incident.
- The mere fact of reporting a crime is not grounds for initiating proceedings. There are cases when the report on the crime committed contains no signs of violation and it is impossible to initiate a case.
If a police officer himself has become an eyewitness to a criminal act, he cannot conduct an investigation into the case, but is subject to recusal. The fact is that there is a need to interrogate him as a witness. The same applies if the police officer who reported the crime is an interested party. He cannot state his demands in the report.
That is why, in addition to reporting the incident, he must submit a written statement about the incident with demands to bring the offender to justice. Initially, a report is recorded, and then a statement. From the moment the application is registered, the employee who filed the report will appear in the case as a victim.
Report on detection of signs of a crime
A message about a crime being prepared or committed is understood to be a corresponding message about it, received from sources other than those discussed in previous publications (statement of a crime and confession). “Other sources” may include information obtained from media reports, as well as from information identified by the investigator, inquiry officer, or prosecutor directly in the performance of their official duties.
However, practice shows that in most cases, other sources of obtaining information about a crime are the results of operational search activities.
According to paragraph 4 of the “Instructions on the procedure for presenting the results of operational investigative activities to the investigator, the inquiry body, the investigator, the prosecutor or to the court”, approved by Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation N 368, FSB of the Russian Federation N 185, FSO of the Russian Federation N 164, FCS of the Russian Federation N 481, SVR of the Russian Federation N 32, Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation N 184, Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation N 97, Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation N 147 dated April 17, 2007 (hereinafter referred to as the Instructions), the investigator, the inquiry body, the investigator, the prosecutor or the court are presented with the results of the operational investigation, which may, among other things, serve as a reason and the basis for initiating a criminal case
At the same time, paragraph 7 of the Instructions regulates the procedure according to which the results of an operational investigation are presented in the form of a report on the detection of signs of a crime or a report on the results of operational investigative activities (for more details on the presentation of the results of an operational investigation to an inquiry officer, an inquiry agency, an investigator, a prosecutor or to a court, see the article “Use of the results of operational investigative activities”).
Thus, the reason for initiating a criminal case may be a message about an impending or committed crime, contained not only in a report on the detection of signs of a crime, but also in the form of a message on the results of operational investigative activities.
In this case, drawing up a report is consistent with the provisions of Article 143 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, while the criminal procedure law does not contain any instructions about such a document as a report on the results of operational investigative activities. However, to date I have not come across a single criminal case where there was only a report on the results of operational investigative activities. As a rule, there is also a report on the discovery of signs of a crime.
Reasons for drawing up
A police officer can draw up an official denunciation on the basis of a written statement from a citizen who has submitted information about a crime, on the basis of an oral report that took place, information obtained in the process of operational-search activities, as well as facts revealed during the criminal investigation of another case. Police officers can even learn about the commission of a crime from the media, but they must carefully check all facts for authenticity before filing a report.
A crime can be reported even by telephone. The police officer will be required to file a report even if the applicant refuses to submit a written statement, although concealing criminal activity is a criminal offense, this should be remembered.
After the report is completed, it is submitted to management for review. The duration of the inspection is 10 days; in particularly difficult situations, the inspection time can be extended to 20 days. If the facts are confirmed, criminal proceedings and pre-trial investigation begin. If the fact of a crime is not confirmed, the initiation of a case is refused. There are a number of situations when a case can be sent to another subordinate body for investigation, since the competence of the body to which the report was received does not include such internal checks.
It will be interesting to know that a report on the detected signs of a crime can be filed during the trial based on an oral statement from any of the parties to the trial. All information is recorded in the minutes of the meeting, and its copy is notarized and sent to law enforcement agencies in the form of a report. This information is again checked, and if confirmed, the course of the trial can radically change.
The procedure for considering reports of a crime and the timing of initiating a case under the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, Article 144
Form and content of a statement (report) about a crime when contacting internal affairs bodies
April 23, 2021
Special rules have been established for filing statements (reports) about crimes, administrative offenses and incidents. You can contact us orally or in writing. The police receive and register such requests.
You can orally make a statement about a crime and a statement of confession.
You can orally report circumstances indicating signs of a committed or impending crime, an act of terrorism, an administrative offense, as well as incidents that threaten personal or public safety, including accidents, traffic accidents, accidents, catastrophes, mass poisonings of people, natural disasters in respect of which verification actions are required in order to detect signs of a crime or administrative offense.
An appeal to law enforcement agencies must be recorded in writing, for example, by drawing up a protocol of acceptance of an oral statement about a crime, a protocol of surrender, a report, making an entry in the book of statements and reports of crimes, administrative offenses, and incidents (hereinafter referred to as the KUSP) , in the log of messages received via the helpline.
If you decide to submit a written statement to law enforcement agencies about a crime, an administrative offense, or an incident, it is recommended to adhere to the following algorithm:
1. Draw up an application on paper (drawn up in any form). Usually the application indicates the following: - name of the law enforcement agency, or full name. the official to whom the application is addressed. At the same time, it is possible to submit an application to any territorial unit, regardless of the place and time of the commission of the crime, administrative offense, or the occurrence of the incident that you are reporting. — Full name, address, phone number and other contact details of the applicant. A citizen of the Russian Federation, a foreign citizen or a stateless person has the right to apply. The application can be submitted by either the victim (victim) of a crime, offense or incident, or his legal representative, or any other person. A statement of confession is submitted by the person who committed the crime. - the essence of the statement, data about the crime, about the signs of a committed or impending terrorist act, information indicating the presence of an administrative offense event, about the circumstances of the incident. The crime report must be signed and dated.
2. At the duty station of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, statements about crimes, administrative offenses, and incidents are received by the operational duty officer around the clock. Outside the administrative buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia or in the administrative buildings of the police department, in which there are no duty units, applications are accepted by an authorized employee of the internal affairs body. On the accepted application on paper, the employee must indicate the date and time of its receipt, his position, initials, surname and certify this information with his signature. He transmits information on the substance of the application to the duty station for registration in the KUSP. An application can also be submitted during a personal meeting with a law enforcement official, sent by mail, by fax or electronically. When receiving a written statement about a crime, you are required to warn about criminal liability for knowingly false denunciation and make an appropriate note, which you must confirm with your signature.
3. In the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the operational duty officer of the duty unit, who accepted the application personally from the applicant, must issue a coupon, which consists of two parts: a coupon-stub and a coupon-notification, both having the same registration number. In the notification coupon, he indicates his special rank and full name, the registration number of the application according to the KUSP, the name of the territorial body of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the address and office telephone number, the date and time of receipt of the application and puts his signature. The applicant signs for receipt of the notification coupon on the coupon stub, puts down the date and time of receipt of the notification coupon (coupon stubs remain in the duty station). A notification coupon is not issued when a police department receives an application sent by mail, fax, during a personal reception of an official, or through the official website, but a corresponding note is made in the KUSP.
Prepared by the Directorate for Supervision of Criminal Procedure and Operational Investigative Activities of the Regional Prosecutor's Office
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Illegal report
Work on indicators
The media quotes about increasing the security of medium and small businesses. The President of the Russian Federation also demands to protect small businesses and at the same time asks to strengthen the fight against corruption. If we take the work of the police, then every newly appointed chief wants to show improvement in the work in the area entrusted to him, and only indicators can serve as proof of this.
The new boss, who is not against becoming a general, begins working on a goal - how to achieve improved performance in the fight against crime?
This requires an increase in the number of complaints about crimes committed or being prepared, an increase in the number of solved crimes, a certain number of solved corruption crimes, etc. In times of declaring the fight against corruption and theft of budget funds, the detectives of the Department for Economic Crimes pay priority attention to this area and are required to report on these indicators. A report is needed.
What should the detective do if there are no allegations of a crime in this area? How can he look for such violations if there are no legal grounds for starting verification actions within the framework of Article 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation? Not only the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, but also the President of the Russian Federation demands an increase and strengthening of the fight against corruption. Only numbers can show the result.
According to Article 140 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the reasons for initiating a criminal case and starting an inspection in accordance with Article 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation are: 1) a statement of a crime;
2) surrender; 3) a message about a crime committed or being prepared, received from other sources; 4) the prosecutor’s decision to forward the relevant materials to the preliminary investigation body to resolve the issue of criminal prosecution. The latter can only be determined based on inspection materials. Report on the discovery of a crime
If there are no materials from prosecutorial checks, statements about a crime and confessions, then the only option to start searching for possible crimes remains the execution by the employee himself of a Report on the discovery of signs of a crime, which, in accordance with Article 143 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, is equivalent to a message about a crime committed or being prepared, obtained from other sources, provided for in clause 3, part 1, article 140 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation.
Investigative officer's report
Signs of a crime are not flowers; they themselves are not revealed or shown. They can only be detected after verification activities. For this reason, sometimes, to begin verification actions, they literally resort to writing a Report on the detection of signs of a crime, without any messages, information or statements.
The report is signed by the head of the department and the deputy head of the police department or the chief of police himself.
If a report is written, then usually people up to the head of the department initially know that he was born out of nowhere. By law, they must not allow violations of laws. But, on the other hand, the task has been set. If they don’t comply, they have no right. They may be kicked out of the service. If the detective’s report on the discovery of signs of a crime is not endorsed, then you can pay for it. If suddenly a criminal case is born from the report, then the indicators will increase and, perhaps, encouragement awaits. If not, then it's okay. There is always a salary, but the service continues. Operator's report
When the time comes to show a plan for statistics for a certain period and it seems that there are signs of a crime, although this is not a fully established fact, then the operator writes in the report on the detection of signs of a crime that there are signs of a crime. The investigator is also an employee of the same police department and his decisions are also somehow formed taking into account the opinions of the management.
Is a police report always a reason to initiate a criminal case? Read the article “IF A CRIMINAL CASE IS INSTITUTED WITHOUT A STATEMENT.”
Consent of the prosecutor
The resolution to initiate a criminal case is written briefly and, basically, in the circumstances set out in them, some signs of a crime are almost always described, and more often than not, when the resolution to initiate a criminal case describes some signs of a crime, the supervising prosecutor agrees on the initiation a criminal case, because according to Part 2 of Article 140 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the basis for initiating a criminal case is the presence of sufficient data indicating signs of a crime.
The operative officer under the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation is not authorized to issue a decision to initiate a criminal case. Time limit for canceling the decision to initiate a criminal case
The prosecutor can only cancel the decision to initiate a criminal case within 24 hours from the receipt of the materials that served as the basis for initiating a criminal case.
If the prosecutor was late with this deadline, I personally have not yet seen a prosecutor who, after 24 hours, admitted his negligence and admitted the illegality of the decision to initiate a criminal case, which he had agreed upon and previously recognized as legal. If after 24 hours he realizes his mistake, then according to the law he can no longer cancel the illegal decision to initiate a criminal case. In such cases, the prosecutor has no option but to stand in solidarity with those police officers who knew about the Report that was composed almost out of nowhere about the discovery of signs of a crime, so that, indeed, evidence of the crime would later be discovered and thereby the report made up and the consent of the superiors would be justified and correct . The power of a businessman
It is very difficult for an entrepreneur, against whom a criminal case has been initiated based on a report on the discovery of signs of a crime, to seek truth and justice alone under such circumstances. Delay can turn out very badly. But, as in Rus' they said from ancient times, “Until thunder strikes, a Russian man will not cross himself,” so self-respecting, proud Russian entrepreneurs do not immediately resort to the help of experienced criminal lawyers, because they themselves have gone through this difficult life and overcome many difficulties , obstacles, intrigues, falls, they achieved success, and here they think that they themselves will figure it out, decide or come to an agreement.
The sooner an experienced criminal lawyer gets involved in such situations, the greater the chance that his actions will protect the fate of the entrepreneur and his business and will seriously force the police to think about not making illegal moves, and in some cases will be able to prevent the illegal initiation of a criminal case.
Report date
The gap between the date of preparation and registration of the Report on the discovery of signs of a crime and the date of initiation of a criminal case can range from several days to several months.
Sometimes the decision to initiate a criminal case can be made on the day of registration of the Report on the discovery of signs of a crime. Playing on the brink of a foul
Not every written report on the discovery of signs of a crime leads to a decision to initiate a criminal case.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced on February 20, 2019. in his message to the Federal Assembly, 45% of cases against entrepreneurs are terminated before reaching court. As a result, for every entrepreneur whose business falls apart as a result of such police harassment, an average of 130 employees lose their jobs. Comes into play: the honor of the uniform
Many entrepreneurs will feel the unpleasant consequences of a written report first-hand and in business. Such a report gives rise to and serves as the basis for inspections, seizures of documents of financial and economic activities, computers with Internet keys, C1 databases and electronic documentation, etc. Moreover, sometimes they carry out illegal inspections of offices, illegal seizures of documents, and return documents with great delay, paralyzing the financial and economic activities of the entrepreneur.
When the case according to the written report does not go well and there is nothing to stitch together except numerous complaints and acts of fruitless and sometimes illegal measures, then, as some police say with their heads held high, they have a period of “defending the honor of their uniform.” Then almost the entire law enforcement system prowls and digs everything around the non-criminal businessman in order to find the corpus delicti. They begin to passionately interview the businessman’s subordinates, his counterparties, and try in every possible way to persuade them to hand over the person they want, for which purpose they begin to harass the business of the counterparties.
In many such cases, the innocent entrepreneur has the feeling and rumors that he was allegedly ordered by a competitor, although sometimes the reason lies in the nature of the systematic work of the police.
The search for a crime lasts until it breaks down, and for this, a criminal lawyer must systematically make complaint injections into all possible authorities. Given such a nightmare, many people will feel the pressure of possible criminal or administrative punishment. For some, this may lead to curtailment of business activities. Illegally initiated criminal case
Is it possible in such a situation to initiate a criminal case under Part 3 of Article 299 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - illegal initiation of a criminal case, if this act was committed in order to impede business activity or out of selfish or other personal interest and resulted in the termination of business activity or damage major damage?
It is not possible to differentiate between a custom-made Report on the discovery of signs of a crime or a custom-made initiation of a criminal case from a Report on the discovery of signs of a crime drawn up in the usual manner.
Moreover, it is unlikely that an investigator who illegally initiated a custom-made criminal case will admit that he was carrying out someone’s order. It’s easier for him to say that he did his job as in all other criminal cases and inspection materials. It is difficult to imagine that an even slightly competent investigator will admit that he illegally opened a custom-made criminal case if the question of whether his actions constitute a crime depends only on his words. If the inspection after a year, two or three finally ends with a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case or terminate the criminal case, then no one is responsible for this mental police pressure. Responsibility for reporting a crime
If a citizen reports a crime and his statement about the crime turns out to be false, then his authorities will prosecute him under Article 306 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - for knowingly false denunciation of the commission of a crime. According to current legislation, a police officer who wrote a report on the discovery of signs of a crime and thereby caused a lot of trouble, and possibly thereby depriving citizens and entrepreneurs of sources of income, taxes to the state, does not bear any responsibility. When compared with scheduled prosecutorial inspections, it is precisely when conducting inspections based on written reports on the discovery of signs of a crime that the police carry out massive carpet bombing of the business environment and freedom of entrepreneurship.
Responsibility for illegal reporting
I believe that it is necessary not only to equalize, but to establish increased liability for police officers who write a report on the detection of signs of an economic crime, without appropriate confirmation and calculations of the damage caused from the business activity of a citizen or organization. For this purpose, the policeman who draws up a Report on the detection of signs of a crime, like an ordinary applicant, similar to Part 6 of Article 141 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, must be warned about criminal liability for a knowingly false denunciation under Article 306 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which should be stated in the Report on the discovery of signs of a crime enter the same mark as for a regular applicant. If the Report on the discovery of signs of a crime turns out to be false, then its author, like the applicant of the false report of a crime, must bear criminal liability under Article 306 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Is it necessary to have a statement from the victim to bring the person involved to criminal liability for each part of the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation? Read about this in the article “CRIMINAL CASE TERMINATED DUE TO THE LACK OF A VICTIM’S STATEMENT.”
Prepared by: criminal lawyer Vasiliev A.L.
