Refusal to initiate a preliminary investigation

REFUSAL TO INITIATE A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION SUMMARY After a new Penal Procedure Code has been enforced, 1 May 2003, a new order of an initation of a preliminary investigation has become into a force. Preliminary investigation is initiated when a criminal act is discovered, but it is not initiated in all cases. The institution of a refusal to initiate a preliminary investigation is regulated in the article 168 of Penal Procedure Code of the Republic of Lithuania. It is determined that a prosecutor or prosecuting authority, after receiving a complaint, an application or a report and in certain cases their specification, may refuse to initiate a preliminary investigation only in cases when a complaint, an application or a report contains obviously false information about the criminal act. The aim of this study is to carry out the analysis of the institution legal regulating a refusal to initiate a preliminary investigation, to do a practical analysis, to introduce to legal deeds, regulating this penal procedure institution, to evaluate the experience of foreign countries and of a certain law institution in Lithuania in this field. This study examines the institution of a refusal to initiate a preliminary investigation, conceptions of a preliminary investigation; conditions, permitting to refuse to initiate a preliminary investigation in common order and after receiving a specification, are analysed separately. “ Conception of a specification” and its submission, subjects, who make a decision to refuse to initiate a preliminary investigation, the experience of foreign countries to initiate a preliminary investigation are presented as well. The study contains an empirical inquiry. It contains the experience of Šilute Police station in refusing to initiate a preliminary investigation under the period 1 May 2003 – 1 February 2007, suggestions and conclusions, improving the institution of a refusal to initiate a preliminary investigation are presented as well. International and the Republic of Lithuania, foreign countries deeds, Lithuanian and foreign countries penal procedure and criminal law literature, Šilutė Police station material, where is refused to initiate a preliminary investigation, allows to ensure the purpose of penal process, defending human and civil rights and freedom, social and state interests, quickly, exhaustively reveal criminal acts and use law properly, that a person, comitted a criminal, would be punished in just way and no one not quilty would be punished