- Police inquiry and indictment from the perspective of the constitutional model of criminal process

Abstract

The present article aims to analyse police inquiry, in particular the preliminary indictment of the defendant. The objective of the work is to analyse, in a didactic way, the general aspects of the police investigation from a democratic perspective, exposing its stigmatizing and invasive character over the individual's legal sphere. It also seeks to demonstrate the importance of levels of control of the punitive power, especially the formal preliminary indictment, as an important tool for limiting the selectivity of the investigation and its political instrumentalization. For the articulation of the arguments, the work used the methodology of problem-oriented thinking, in order to bring theoretical reflections to practice, demonstrating its concrete relevance. In order to answer the exposed problems, it is proposed a theoretical investigation, with priority for content analysis with a view to a critical understanding of the problem-theme and the elaboration of solution proposals for the case presented. Thus, the proposal consists of a legal-dogmatic research, of a comprehensive-propositional type, in which the use of inductive-deductive reasoning predominates. The results point to the urgency of reflections on procedural justice in criminal proceedings, realizing that method and respect for the formal determinations of the acts that make up criminal proceedings are the elements that provide legal security to the individual, as well as remove the risks of instrumentalization of the State apparatus for political purposes or for the simple satisfaction of society's desires and retributive expectations.