Effective Management of Seized and Confiscated Assets as a Condition for Providing Victims with Access to Justice and Fairness of Procedures Used in Criminal Proceedings: International and Russian Experience

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to form a General idea of the management system in the framework of legal procedures for seized and confiscated assets for compensation for damage caused by an offense. The hypothesis of the research is that the national system of management of seized and confiscated assets is lagging the current tasks and trends of legal protection of victims. The objectives of the research are: analysis of the legal basis for regulating the management of seized and confiscated property; generalization of foreign law enforcement practice and recommendations of international organizations on the management of seized and confiscated property; development of proposals for improving the legislation of the Russian Federation. The empirical material is based on various law enforcement acts (resolutions of authorized bodies, decisions and sentences of courts, etc.), the results of a survey of law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and official statistics. The methodological basis of the research is the dialectical method of scientific knowledge, the main General scientific research methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy, modeling), the comparative legal method, the principle of cognoscibility of objective reality. The main results of the study allow us to comprehensively assess the effectiveness and sufficiency of legal regulation and management practices of seized and confiscated assets in the Russian Federation; to develop the most effective approaches and methods of management of property goods of interest based on the analysis of foreign experience and legislation; to propose a model for building a comprehensive system of management of seized material goods in the Russian Federation, taking into account the specifics of economic and socio-legal factors. The research area consists of legal relations that are formed in the process of organizing and implementing measures aimed at accounting, storage, and sale of assets that have been seized and confiscated based on the facts of committed offenses. Prospects for the studies proceed from the view of the system of management of the seized and confiscated property, on the one hand as a necessary element of the guarantees of the access of the victim to justice, and fundamental fairness of the procedures, taking into account the interests of persons subject to criminal prosecution on the other. The authors proceed from the need to create conditions for making a legal, reasonable and fair management decision in relation to property seized in a criminal case that is of a security nature in relation to criminal proceedings. From these positions, the paper examines the implementation of interim measures taken in the framework of the implementation of the procedural powers of participants in these legal relations.