Review

In theory significance of violations of procedural law determined mainly of the possible impact of the violations on the legality and justification of criminal procedural decisions, particular verdict.  The justice seems to be  more  correct measure of materiality of violations committed when making a final procedural decision. Using justice as measurement allows to evaluate the materiality of violations not from the formal position, but from point of view of real influence on the character and content of the made decision. The unfairness of the decision creates a situation where the correction of judicial error distorts the essence of justice, destroys the balance constitutionally significant values. In such circumstances, the stability of the judgment is not so important value to preserve it while the harmful, caused for the rights and legitimate interests of the trial participators affected by unfair judgment. A similar measure of materiality applies violations of the European Court of Human Rights in its decisions demonstrate a balanced approach to the assessment of the nature committed violations of due process in terms of their possible impact on the overall fairness of the proceedings. Method «fairness of the proceeding taken as a whole» does not include investigation of the legality of any particular proceedings apart from other process steps. While even detection of serious violations of the right to a fair trial committed by the national courts did not always entail an overall assessment of trial and final decision as unfair in many cases.  In many cases, with national judicial practice, the judges associated the materiality of violations not only with the legality and justification of criminal procedural, but also with justice. And such violations qualified as substantial, often relating to failure due process proceedings, including failure to respect the legitimate rights and interests of the proceedings. Its impossible to give a formal universal algorithm to determine the justice because it is situational in each case and carried on the empirical level (ad hoc). Subjective factors in decision making stipulate the fact that the standard of justice applied in two similar cases, does not necessarily lead to identical decisions.

Keywords: materiality, the standard of justice, violations of procedural law, criminal procedural decision, legal stability, unity of judicial practice.