The Definition of Criminal Procedural Form Differentiation

This article analyzes the differentiation of procedural form, its concept and essence. It’s studied the features of differentiation of criminal procedural form, the relationship of structural and functional differentiation using the philosophical approaches to solving mentioned problem. The author analyzes the diversity of scientific views about the nature of the category of differentiation of criminal procedural form – as a way of structuring the criminal proceedings; its principles; as the specific procedure for criminal proceedings; as possibility to solve common tasks in different ways within a single criminal process; as a means of regulation; as the trends of criminal procedural forms; as a principle of criminal procedure; as state and structures of the legislation. The article concluded that there is a dialectical relationship between unification and differentiation of procedural form, because differentiation is possible only in the way of uniform. Unification of procedural form is a kind of differentiation of a broader phenomenon – the legal process in general. The article include the reasonable position that the definition of «differentiation of the criminal procedural forms» should be understood as the branching, acquisition by one or another branch more specific features in the mechanism of legal regulation of certain groups of public relations. There are functional differentiation that expands the range of functions carried out by elements of the developed system and structural differentiation that include subsystems with certain functions.