In criminal proceedings, starting from the judicial reform of 1864, the idea of creation a principle of adversity was fundamental. Due to political and ideological prerequisites, it is impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion about the existence of an adversarial criminal process in Russia. At various stages of its formation, the procedural form was predominantly investigative or mixed, which means that at the pre-trial stages the role of the criminal prosecution prevailed due to the assigned burden of proof. But adversarial principles are still present in court. Undoubtedly, the 1991 reform concept set the task of creating an absolutely competitive judicial process. However, the adversarial form of criminal proceeding is still not always feasible, since there is no balance between the defense and the prosecution in the procuring of evidence. As a rule, at the pre-trial stages, the case lies in the hands of the criminal prosecution authorities, the defender is actually constrained in obtaining proof, dependent on the manifestation of procedural goodwill in the course of the preliminary investigation. In this regard, the goal of the research is to consider the role of such a procedural participant in the criminal process in the certain foreign states as an investigating judge, and the positive and negative aspects of their role. On the one hand, the experience of Ukraine shows that the investigating judge is a completely reasonable participant in the criminal process in terms of the implementation of judicial control and in ensuring the balance of interests of the defense and the prosecution in the implementation of objective competitiveness. On the other hand, Kazakh lawyers demonstrate the problems and workload of the investigating judge, whose procedural role is anything but simple. In order to research the issue of the expediency of the investigating judges in Russia, the following methods were used in this study: conversations, axiomatic method, analysis and synthesis. The article explores the perspectives of modern Russian and foreign scientists on the relevance or the futility of implementation the role of an investigating judge in Russian criminal procedure. That discussion ultimately comes down to the mentality of the domestic criminal process, that still remains predominantly accusatory at the pre-trial stages.