Legal Means of Procuring the Unity Application of the Criminal Procedure Law

Ensuring the unity of judicial practice is the implementation of the legal certainty principle, which is considered as the part of the rule of law, ensures the predictability of court decisions. At the theoretical level, the issues of the unity of judicial practice are mostly the subject of research in the context of judicial reform and the judiciary, but comprehensive research on this issue in the field of modern criminal justice is almost absent. The purpose of the study is to establish a system of legal means to ensure the unity of judicial practice. The methodological basis of the study was based on general and special methods, namely: dialectical, systematic, formal-legal and logical methods. The authors provide a brief overview of the theoretical provisions that determine the socio-legal value of the unity of law enforcement practice. The concept of "unity of judicial practice" in the field of criminal proceedings is analyzed and it was emphasized the usage of the approach of understanding the unity of judicial practice as a synonym of equal (adjustment) application of procedural and material norms in homogeneous categories of court decisions, which are adopted in the course of criminal proceedings. It is established that the limit of permitted differences in the application of the law is quite flexible and informal. It is established that the quality of the law cannot be assessed in isolation from the practice of its application. The authors also emphasize the instrumental role of judicial practice in the general mechanism of ensuring uniformity of law enforcement. A position was expressed on the role of explanations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court in the general mechanism of ensuring the unity of judicial practice. It is established that the system of legal means to ensure the unity of application of the law in the field of criminal proceedings consists of a set of interrelated elements. The results of the study can be used in further scientific development of the problem of ensuring the unity of judicial practice, scientific substantiation of proposals aimed to improve the current legislation of Ukraine, which regulates the issues that have become the subject of this research