Анотація

The accession of Ukraine to the Council of Europe and further ratification of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms on July 17th 1997 gave our state the opportunity to become a part of the European system of human rights protection, which provides not only the obligation to protect the rights and freedoms, but also the obligation to recognize the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. The case law of the European Court of Human Rightsplays a practical role in the correct interpretation and application of the norms and concepts of domestic criminal procedural law.

One of the concepts that is connected with the provision of an adequate level of protection of individual freedom and integrity of a person in the criminal justice process and careful investigation is "suspicion." The statistic of the European Court against Ukraine indicates that the national law enforcement practice does not have a correct understanding of the suspicion, the time of its beginning and its ending, the qualitative characteristics of the reasonable suspicion according to The Convention.

The purpose of the article is to study the European Court's understanding of suspicion and its characteristics.

It has been established that the European Court in its decisions identifies suspicion as an assumption of a criminal offense committed by a person and decides on its availability by investigating the actual situation of a person in a criminal proceeding and carrying out procedural measures concerning her, which may significantly affect his condition. It is concluded that in the practice of the European Court, the moment of suspicion of committing a criminal offense is related to the moment when some procedural steps have been taken to the person (due to the presence of such suspicion) that may significantly affect his condition.

The work highlights the main characteristics of reasonable suspicion. It is also determined that the European Court, depending on the results of the pre-trial investigation, concludes the suspicion, either the official notification to the person of the prosecution, or the unilateral decision made in favor of the person that he will no longer be prosecuted and his position can not be considered as such, which is substantially affected by the proceedings.

Keywords: suspicion, reasonable suspicion, European Court of Human Rights, beginning of suspicion, ending of suspicion.