Darovskikh Svetlana Mikhailovna — Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Chair Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics, South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation. E-mail: darsvet@mail.ru

The article explains the usefulness of judicial legal positions when making decisions in criminal cases. Reforms in the country, the emergence of new social relations require new ways and means to resolve them. One of these new methods are judicial legal positions formed by the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and used by lower courts in criminal proceedings in cases where no rules that would regulate certain social relations, or there are contradictions in the legislative framework, gaps or other problems. The author demonstrates the examples of judicial practice, the usefulness and application of the reasonableness of the judicial legal positions.