Sukhinin A.V. The Public Criticism of Police as a Form of Social Control
Sukhinin Aleksandr Vitalyevich
Doctor of Juridical Sciences, Professor, Department of Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics, Volgograd State University
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Prosp. Universitetsky, 100, 400062 Volgograd, Russian Federation
Abstract. The legal norms inducing to commission of active actions include the right of citizens provided by the Constitution of the Russian Federation to direct personal and collective appeals to government bodies and to officials who within the competence are obliged to consider them, to make decisions and to give the motivated answer in time established by the law. In spite of the fact that the Constitution does not have the “right for criticism” norm, the listed above actions represent the form of implementing critical evaluation of the public phenomena and processes, that deal with non-compliance and non-consent with existing reality. One of the forms of critical evaluation and social control of government bodies activity is represented by the over-departmental control when the emphasis is placed on the extent to which a government body, the police in particular, carries out its social duty, i.e. it is a question of assessing the results of work not only from the point of view of professional, but also allsocial interests and axiological estimates. The public criticism is predetermined by its functions: controlling, consulting and directive. The function of control by the population and certain citizens is shown by the fact that by means of studying the public opinion it puts one of its important institutes under social control. The forms of control are various: publications in mass media, carrying out special polls, the analysis of citizens’ appeals. One of the ways of appeal expression is a complaint. The complaint is the reaction to violation of the subjective rights of citizens, means of their protection and at the same time, the improvement of the activity of executive government bodies. Addressing
with complaints to police officers, citizens reveal various law violations, misconduct of officials, promoting the elimination of these phenomena.
Key words: police, public criticism, citizens’ appeals, government bodies, officials.