Peculiarities of secret investigative (search) actions in the legislation of Germany and Ukraine

After gaining independence, Ukraine took an active pro-European position, also in the development of legislation. Turning to the historical aspects of the development of the legal system of our state, we know that it belongs to the Romano- Germanic legal family, which determines the fact that domestic legislation has a number of common features with European legal systems, namely: among the main sources of law - normative - legal act, codification of legislation. Studies of foreign law were carried out by a number of scientists, however, the specifics of secret investigative (research) actions in the context of a comparative analysis of foreign and domestic experience require a more thorough study. The article analyzed the main features of the organization and conduct of undercover investigative (search) actions in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Federal Republic of Germany. Having studied the separate provisions of the Federal Criminal Code of Germany, we can note that the main functions during the investigation, including secret measures, are assigned to the prosecutor and the court, while the Criminal Code of Ukraine clearly defines the authorities that carry out pre-trial investigations, the first of which is the National Police of Ukraine, and the prosecutor’s office, as a body of pre-trial investigation, is absent. At the same time, the authorized person who can make a decision on the NSRD is the investigator, who has the right to apply to the investigating judge with a request, approved by the prosecutor, for permission to conduct secret investigative (search) actions and the prosecutor. Thus, as a result of a comparative analysis of certain secret measures under the Federal Criminal Code of Germany and the NSDR under the Criminal Code of Ukraine, we found that the procedure for their implementation in Germany is not detailed, unlike domestic legislation, in addition, among the features that deserve attention, we can highlight in the paragraphs of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Federal Republic of Germany on specific crimes, in the course of the investigation of which the legislator allows one or another secret measure to be carried out, in the Ukrainian criminal procedural law, such an approach is absent, in Art. 246 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine states only that NSRD may be conducted during the investigation of serious or particularly serious crimes. We think it expedient to consider such specification for implementation in the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in order to prevent possible abuses in obtaining information that goes beyond the scope of the investigation.