27 Dec 2018 14:26

Prosecutors finding irregularities in investigators' work more frequently - Prosecutor General's Office

MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) - The quality of investigators' work has decreased the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said.

"As for investigations and pre-investigation checks, of course, the quality is decreasing, we have said that more than once, but prosecutors do not have enough powers to improve the situation. Moreover, it is not always possible to fill in some gaps that emergency during preliminary investigations in court," Russian Prosecutor General's Office spokesman Alexander Kurennoi said on the agency's Internet channel.

Over 4.5 million violations of the law were found by prosecutors at pre-trial stages of criminal proceedings in the first 11 months of this year, and almost 1.3 million of these violations were registered in cases of which investigators and interrogators were in charge, he said.

"As a result, the number of violations went up 5.7% from last year," Kurennoi said.

The reasons for the closure of criminal cases this year, like in the previous years were "as a rule, low quality of preliminary investigations and considerable irregularities in criminal and procedural evidence," he said.

If a prosecutor comes to the conclusion during legal proceedings that the evidence does not support the charge, he has a right to partially or fully drop the charge, Kurennoi said.

"Prosecutors in courts dropped the charges against 89 people in 2017, and charges were dropped against 32 people in the first half of 2018," Kurennoi said.

"A total of 480 people were fully acquitted in first-instance courts in the first half of 2018 (not including reversals of acquittals by appellate courts), and criminal cases against another 152 people were closed by appellate and cassation courts," he said.