The Right to Defense and Reform of the Criminal Procedure Legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of the norms on legal aid and advocacy in relation with criminal procedure regulation. The positive aspects of clarifying the legal status of a witness who has the right to defense, expanding the powers of a lawyer in criminal proceedings, including the possibility of conducting an independent interview, as well as the right of the defense party to get acquainted with a large volume of documents, are noted. Revealed significant contradictions. inconsistency of the norms of law with some principles of the criminal procedure, as well as conflicts of certain prescriptions. The research results are as follows. It is required to eliminate the excessive semantic load of some norms regarding the witness who has the right to defense. Excessive detailing limits the range of implementation of the lawyer’s powers The results of the survey play the role of a preliminary conversation due to the unclear procedural nature of the survey as a means of proof, the unstable evidentiary value of the means of fixation. This makes it possible to equate the results of a survey conducted by a lawyer, drawn up in the form of a survey report, to other documents.We consider it possible for a lawyer to interview a clergyman and attach its results to a criminal case, because the respondent has a different procedural status — a person who presumably possesses information related to a criminal case, but not a witness. Also, this action is not an interrogation in its full sense.The rights of the accused are significantly infringed if he is absolutely deprived of the opportunity to familiarize himself with the list of witnesses for the prosecution, together with the indictment, before the start of the trial. The provisions of the law do not exclude such a situation, but, with a high degree of probability, allow it.