The legal protection of the interests of persons who have not committed criminal offences in the case of criminal procedural infringements – when and where the State draws the lines

The contemporary criminal proceedings are characterised by the fact that increasingly more often alongside the interests of persons directly linked to a criminal offence also the economic interests of other persons are infringed upon, through the expansion of the institution of the so-called mechanism of confiscation of property not based on sentencing, etc. The article focuses on the legal protection of these persons and the relevant issues of it. The article examines the issues of the circle of persons, who due to the infringement on their economic rights have the rights but have not been granted the rights of an active participant of the criminal proceedings, as well as the scope of rights of these persons as participants of criminal proceedings. In difference to deciding on the issue “guilty or innocent”, which both on the national and the international level has a relatively strictly enshrined model, in deciding on the so-called “secondary” or “consequential” issues, a strict model like this is absent. Hence, the State should decide on the matter of how to ensure full legal protection to persons if their rights have been restricted. Undeniably, also in this case, the requirements regarding a fair procedure should be met. However, the matter, whether and – if – to what extent various rights should be granted in the framework of criminal proceedings, needs to be discussed. The article, based on the analysis of the Latvian experience, outlines some lines of discussion and provides the authors’ assessment of the possible development thereof. The issues that are raised by the Latvian discussion might be useful for creating and developing discussion also in other states