Operational principles of criminal investigation: immediacy, timeliness and secrecy as conditions of the constitutional principle of efficiency

Abstract

Although from a scientific and epistemological perspective, criminal investigation is an interdisciplinary activity governed by operational principles and legal norms (rules and principles), the operational principles are governed (or limited) by legal norms. Consequently, the best dogmatic construction places them as guiding criteria of the constitutional principle of efficiency. The operational principles of immediacy, timeliness and secrecy characterize criminal investigation and are limited by legal norms to protect fundamental rights and guarantees. Current paper defines these operational principles and their relationships with legal norms. Theoretical research through an analysis of laws, STF judgments, research and articles on the subject of criminal investigation and underlying principles concludes that (a) the principle of immediacy is not restricted by legal norms; (b) the principle of opportunity is largely restricted by legal norms to protect fundamental rights and guarantees, particularly the right to privacy and intimacy; (c) the principle of secrecy, restricted within the investigative line, is not limited by legal norms. Current paper concludes that operational principles have a core of their own and that legal norms restrict these principles on the basis of fundamental rights and guarantees, but not to such an extent that they violate the constitutional principle of efficiency.