As a general rule, three days are allotted to initiate a criminal case. The specified period can be extended up to thirty days in compliance with the established procedure, if there are grounds determined by legislation.
The period from the moment the grounds for initiating a criminal case arise until the actual adoption of the appropriate decision by the investigator, the interrogating officer is called the pre-investigation check. The duration of this period is regulated by Article 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. This norm establishes that the relevant official is obliged to make a decision to initiate a criminal case no later than three days after the receipt of the crime report. At the same time, the specific basis for initiating a criminal case does not matter, since the indicated duration of the pre-investigation check should be applied in all cases.
Is it possible to extend the period of the pre-investigation check?
The aforementioned norm of the criminal procedural legislation also allows to increase the period for conducting a pre-investigation check if there are sufficient grounds for such an extension. In particular, the investigator or interrogator can send a petition to the head of the investigative body, the inquiry department, who, after considering the relevant request, will decide to extend the pre-investigation period to ten days. In this case, the specified petition must be motivated, that is, contain specific grounds for increasing the generally established period. Usually, this need is due to the need for a large number of operational-search measures, their high complexity or significant duration.
The maximum period of pre-investigation check
The ten-day period described above for conducting a pre-investigation check is not the maximum, since in the presence of objective circumstances there is a legislative opportunity to increase it to thirty days. This happens when it is necessary to conduct a documentary check, audit, examination and other lengthy measures. In this case, the investigator also submits a petition to the head of the investigative body, and the inquirer - to the prosecutor. These officials make a decision to increase the period of pre-investigation verification up to 30 days, while they are obliged to indicate the specific circumstances that are the basis for such a decision. The thirty-day review period is the maximum, as there is no other legal option to extend this period.
