Review

The article reviews legal regulation of simplified criminal procedure under the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and laws of foreign countries.

Misdemeanours were introduced by the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine that was passed on April 13, 2012. Defining the most appropriate forms of simplified criminal procedure is to some extent complicated by the absence of legal definition of a misdemeanour. The Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine foresees certain peculiarities of the procedure for misdemeanours, such as shorter period of investigation (usually, not exceeding one month), prohibition of some preventive measures (house arrest, bail, detention) to persons suspected of a criminal offense, and simplified court proceedings (without participation of parties and examination of evidence). Some peculiarities of appeal are also stipulated by the Code.

The simplified criminal procedure for misdemeanours is established by many countries including but not limited to the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, the US, and France. Despite varying approaches to simplification of court proceeding, several common procedural characteristics of misdemeanours shall be distinguished based on the analysis of the European legislation.

The author, studied law in some European countries, made the following conclusions: 1) application of simplified proceedings on criminal offenses preceding a clear legal separation procedural grounds and conditions of such proceedings; 2) the scope of judicial proceedings on criminal offenses usually associated only with the establishment court type and penalties that may be imposed; 3) In most cases, the consent of the accused to trial in proceedings for summary is not required. However, the accused has the right to disagree with by a court decision and appeal it to the general procedure, 4) review of the criminal offenses characterized statutory limitation of a number of principles of criminal proceedings, such as the immediacy of research evidence by the court, adversarial procedure, the right to appeal judicial decisions, acts or omissions.

Keywords: misdemeanors, simplification, criminal procedure, criminal procedural form.