Demarcation between Police, Prosecutor’s and Judicial Functions in the Course of Pre-Trial Criminal Case Investigation: General Provisions

The article discusses doctrinal approaches to distinguishing police, prosecutorial and judicial functions in the pretrial stages of criminal proceedings. Each of these functions implies the implementation by public authorities of relevant powers. Depending on the nature of these powers, some of them can be delegated to other government bodies (primarily executive authorities — the police), delegation of other powers, on the contrary, is not permissible and leads to a distortion of the “system of checks and balances” in the pre-trial stages of criminal proceedings.