Civil action in criminal proceedings

A person who has sustained material damage from a committed criminal offense is entitled to file a civil claim. In the criminal proceedings, the applicant's claims are examined together with the main case.

Reimbursement of property damage (elimination of the consequences of the offense) is endowed with an exceptional value. Civil action in the criminal process contributes not only to stabilizing and strengthening the system of public relations. It becomes possible to achieve a preventive effect on citizens who are prone to delinquency.

Within the framework of the topic under consideration, the statement of claim is one of the methods allowing to bring the property relations into the state in which they were before the commission of the crime. In other words, in this way, the empowered person or the victim makes demands for compensation of material damage that has arisen as a result of the unlawful action. A civil action in a criminal proceeding is an appeal to the direct perpetrator or to other persons provided for by law (trustees, parents and others) through investigative and judicial bodies.

Legitimate requirements within the framework of the proceedings under consideration are those that are based on specific circumstances-general or special prerequisites.

Common grounds should be considered the criminal origin of damage, as well as the material nature of harm. The special preconditions include procedural, legal and substantive grounds.

The latter category includes fault, deed, damage, as well as the causal relationship between damage and deed. The procedural and legal grounds are fixed in the relevant legislative norms.

Special and general prerequisites, on the basis of which the civil claimant in the criminal procedure makes his demands, are legal guidelines for law enforcement agencies. All these grounds are without exception mandatory and important. Moreover, the establishment of their presence in the process of preliminary, judicial investigation or inquiry determines the types of resolution of claims on the merits.

A civil action in the criminal procedure has received (in comparison with other methods of protecting interests of property) quite widespread. This is mainly due to a fairly wide range of applications of this method.

Consideration of a civil action is carried out simultaneously with the criminal case. At the same time, claims that do not have material (property) character can not be declared and considered together with the specified case. Such claims include, in particular, claims for the deprivation of the parental rights of the accused, recognition of his limited legal capacity, applications for maintenance and others. Such claims are considered in the civil procedure, separate from the criminal.

The joint consideration of property claims is conditioned, among other things, by the value of establishing the extent of the damage. In certain cases, without identifying the extent of harm, it is not possible to resolve the main issue of criminal justice. So, in accordance with some categories (for example, cases of embezzlement), the establishment of the amount of damage has a significant impact on the evaluation of circumstances that aggravate or mitigate the responsibility, and in some cases even the absence or presence of a crime. In these situations, the definition of the amount of harm is an integral component of the criminal process. According to the provisions of the law, the nature and extent of damage, like other circumstances that are subject to proof, are endowed with real content in accordance with a particular crime.