Anti-dogmatic: a New Understanding of the Criminal Process and Law

The modern state legal mechanism for combating crime conceptually developed on the ideas of the classical understanding of the state and law. When transitioning to a digital socio-economic formation, its conceptual framework is subject to revision. This methodological problem requires interdisciplinary efforts on the part of specialists from all branches of law. Meanwhile, since “proceduralism” is recognized as the dominant feature of the new legal regulation and the new legal organization in the fight against crime, proceduralism acquires methodological significance. The procedural doctrine of the lawsuit, as a universal legal means of legal self-defense, should be the basis for a new model for resolving criminal law disputes, which can be presented on the digital platform of the state. The digital transformation of state and law makes it possible, at a new stage in the development of civilization, to revive the forms and means of direct democracy that have already been tested in history. Based on non-classical ideas about state and law, the authors propose to restore the accusatory process, popular accusation, free proof, “customary law” (in the form of “wiki-law”) using digital information and communication technologies. It is proposed to make the transition from the traditional investigative type of application of criminal law to a new type of legal organization of the resolution of criminal disputes, based on self-defense subjects of their interests, the interaction of the police, prosecutors, the public and business. The article attempts to rethink some fundamental provisions of the general theory of law, criminal law and process in the context of the concepts of “procedural determinism”, “anthropocentricity”,“ecosystem”, “state-as-platform”. The authors believe that dogmatic and the dogmatic style of thinking that they cultivate are not capable of giving new knowledge about how the legal mechanism for protection against crime should be arranged and work in the digital age.