About

The School of Criminal Law, Legal Process and Criminalistics (previously, Department of Court Proceedings and Criminal Law) was established by the decision of the HSE Academic Council on June 26, 2020 as a structural division of the HSE Faculty of Law.

The School carries out educational and scientific activities in the fields of Russian and foreign legal theory and practice that intermediate or are directly related to the national justice systems, or, in other words, Procedural (Judicial) and Criminal law. The School unites HSE lecturers who specialise in such areas of scientific knowledge as:

• organisation of judiciary and law enforcement agencies;
• civil, commercial, administrative and criminal proceedings;
• enforcement proceedings;
• non-governmental human rights institutions and systems for settlement of social and legal disputes (bar, notary, mediation, arbitration courts);
• criminal and penal enforcement law;
• criminology;
• forensic science.

A characteristic feature of the School that makes it unique in the Russian academic space is its joint research and teaching on such topics as the organisation of judicial power and its implementation in all types of legal proceedings. This approach is due to the constitutional recognition of the high importance of judicial power and judicial protection in a rule of law state, the commonality of the principles of justice and most of the means of their implementation in various types of legal proceedings, that also has a longstanding, formed in the pre-revolutionary period, doctrinal basis – the concept of Judicial Law, that is actively revived in the modern Russian jurisprudence by the School's lecturers.

The Criminal law complements the general procedural focus of the School because, unlike other branches of the substantive law, it is applied only by courts, is subjected practically to the same general legal and constitutional principles as the judicial activity, and currently it is judicial interpretation that is a leading factor in his transformation. The School includes a forensic laboratory.

The School brought together the existing departments of the HSE Faculty of Law - the Department of Judicial Power and the Department of Criminal Law and Forensic Science, as a result, the continuity of the established scientific schools of procedural (judicial) and criminal law was ensured and they were provided with additional opportunities for professional development in the new organisational conditions.