Dispositivity principle in the criminal procedure of Azerbaijan Republic: concept and application in individual rights

Unlike other principles of criminal procedure (such as legality, presumption of innocence, etc.), the principle of dispositivity (the principle of autonomy of the will of a participant in the proceedings) does not have an independent legal formula, enshrined in a separate article in the current criminal procedure legislation of Azerbaijan. In this regard, questions about the existence, concept, content, individual elements, manifestations, and scope of the principle are becoming relevant and at the same time highly disputable. The author aims to determine the essence of dispositivity, to consider its individual manifestations, as well as to develop scientifically sound recommendations for optimizing the application in practice of the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure in regulating issues related to the dispositive basis of the criminal process. The set goals predetermined solution for such basic issues as study of the philosophical and legal concept of dispositivity; determination of determinants-manifestations of dispositivity in criminal proceedings as a whole; recognition of dispositivity as one of the autonomous principles of the modern criminal process of Azerbaijan. The study was conducted by methods of dialectical cognition based on the principles of reflection, comprehensiveness, unity of induction and deduction, determinism, contradiction, and unity of analysis and synthesis. The author has studied and summarized a great deal of doctrinal material and jurisprudence, and some selected judicial acts have been used as real models for casuistry of the issues addressed in the article. As a result of the study, the author substantiates that, despite the absence of an independent article in the CPC on this principle, dispositivity is an autonomous principle of criminal procedure, not covered by other principles; on the contrary, it enters into various correlative relations with them. In other words, the Code of Criminal Procedure does not provide a binding feature of the principle of criminal procedure. As the main determinants of the principle under study, the author proposes to consider a system of procedural rights of non-governmental participants in the proceedings that have the effect of initiating some kind of proceedings, and the “consent of a participant” category, which is a mandatory condition in the procedural decision-making mechanism of entities with power.