Under the chairmanship of the acting regional prosecutor Alexander Sidorovich, a collegium meeting was held to discuss issues of terminating criminal cases on rehabilitating grounds and the state of prosecutorial supervision in cases of this category.

An analysis of investigative and judicial practice regarding the termination of criminal cases on rehabilitating grounds, and the state of prosecutorial supervision in cases of this category, showed that in 2017, investigators of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus for the Vitebsk region completed investigations into 5971 criminal cases (in 2016 – 6440 cases).

 The number of criminal cases terminated (without subsequent review) decreased from 1014 cases in 2016 to 805 cases in 2017 (-209 cases). At the same time, the proportion of decisions to terminate preliminary investigations on rehabilitating grounds remained at the same level (9.9%). In absolute terms, the number of such decisions was 533 compared to 559 based on the results of work for 2016.

 The largest number of criminal cases were terminated on the grounds of paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 of part 1 of Article 29 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus in the Vitebsk, Novopolotsk city departments of the Investigative Committee, Orsha, Polotsk inter-district departments of the Investigative Committee, Vitebsk, Gorodok, Postavy, Miory, Shumilino, Verkhnedvinsk, Dokshitsy, Chashniki, Tolochin, Dubrovno district departments of the Investigative Committee.

 At the same time, a significant increase in the number of criminal cases terminated on rehabilitating grounds (excluding criminal cases related to the unknown disappearance of a person, as well as those provided for by parts 2 and 3 of Article 317 of the Criminal Code) occurred in Vitebsk (from 7 to 15), Dokshitsy (from 4 to 12), Miory (7 to 12), Chashniki (from 6 to 12), Glubokoe (from 2 to 7) districts.

 The preliminary investigation was most often terminated by investigators in criminal cases of theft (90 cases, which is 16.8% of the total number of cases terminated under paragraphs 1, 2 of part 1 of Article 29 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus), violation of vehicle operation rules (64 cases, or 12%), evasion of parents from maintaining children, or from reimbursement of expenses incurred by the state for the maintenance of children (21 cases, or 3.9%), fraud, hooliganism, robbery (16 cases each, or 3%).

 One of the reasons for the termination of proceedings on rehabilitating grounds is the incompleteness of pre-investigation checks: the initiation of criminal cases without the results of audits of financial and economic activities, incorrect assessment of the damage caused,

failure to clarify all the circumstances of the incident, errors in the qualification of the act.

At the same time, isolated cases of investigators issuing illegal decisions to terminate preliminary investigations, as well as criminal prosecution of suspects, without thorough analysis and evaluation of the collected evidence, indicate a clearly underestimated procedural control by the heads of territorial investigative units over the organization of work of subordinates and the legality of the procedural decisions made by them.

Thus, in 2017, during the verification of the legality and validity of decisions made by investigators to terminate preliminary investigations and criminal prosecution, prosecutors overturned 54 decisions.

Following the collegium, prosecutors and heads of investigative units were set tasks to take additional measures aimed at eliminating existing shortcomings and increasing the efficiency of work in this area.

Head of the Department of the Regional Prosecutor's Office Roman Chudakov.