Review

The author writes about legal status of the institute of the Special Prosecutor in the USA and Ukraine and explores the idea of creating the institute of Public Prosecutor according to the Ukrainian draft legislation. The issue of bringing to justice of people with special social status is relevant in Ukraine. Domestic practice has a significant number of controversial criminal cases, where in public opinion perpetrators are not brought to justice in connection with the ability to influence the course of criminal proceedings.

The paper gives the review of different historical stages of the special prosecutor history in the USA. The author makes a comparative analysis of the legal status of American and Ukrainian institutes. He concludes that there is no  legal equivalent of the US special prosecutor in Ukraine. According to the Constitution of Ukraine and the Regulations of Ukrainian Parliament special prosecutor and investigators in Ukraine have a narrow scope of powers and are involved only in the special temporary investigation commission in the process of impeachment of the president. The idea of the introduction of a public prosecutor in the proposed form can create conditions for the emergence of a significant number of public prosecutors, that could be any person with different intentions including not always honest. The institute of Public prosecutor can cause instability in criminal proceedings, and therefore author believes that draft legislation needs improvement.

Thus, qualitative researches of foreign experience in the administration of justice on the area of socially significant resonant criminal cases connected with the conflict of interest is relevant and necessary. The author believes that the long historical experience of the institute of special prosecutor is  a significant area for further researches.

Keywords: special prosecutor, independent counsel, temporary special investigative commission, public prosecutor, special investigator.