The democratic role of police investigation in the criminal procedure

Abstract

The police investigation, a sort of preliminary investigation genus, requires a new vision, through a democratic and present filter. It’s true role within the criminal procedure, from time to time, is flexibilizated and expanded beyond its structure and legal nature, causing  practical and theoretical problems. In this way, the present work will seek to rescue the core of preliminary investigations, emphasizing the police investigation, given its predominance over other types of preliminary investigation, withouth, however, excluding other forms of investigation from the notes. By adopting a critical stance in face of undue and repeated distortions of the preparatory procedure, without pretending to exhaust the subject, it will seek to (re)affirm the functions and limits of the police investigation, so that the procedure can lend itself to its important duty of collecting the just cause for the formation of the accuser’s “opinio delicti” and the filing of the criminal action, without, however, interfering in the judicial decision.