Criminal Code of Russia

The Criminal Code of Russian Federation (Russian: Уголовный кодекс Российской Федерации (frequently abbreviated УК РФ) – is the main and only source of criminal law, the only normative act that establishes a normative legal act that sets out what actions on the part of citizens can be considered illegal (particularly criminal offences) and what kind of punishment will follow for committing these actions on the territory of the Russian Federation.

After the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, there was a need to create a new criminal code that would reflect changes in the political and socio-economic life of our society, consider the requirements of economic and legal reforms and the specifics of the transition to market economy.

The new criminal code was adopted on 24 May 1996 and entered into force on 1 January 1997. The criminal code follows the idea of non-class approach to the fore the protection of critical universal human values enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

History

Elaboration of the draft Criminal code

The deep economic, state and legal restructuring of Soviet society that began in 1985 and the declaration by the Russian Constitution of the determination to create a democratic state governed by the rule of law put on the agenda the issue of adopting new foundations of the criminal legislation of the USSR and the republics, as well as new Republican criminal codes.

Work on the draft of the new codified criminal legislation began immediately after the Declaration of independence of the Russia. The first draft Criminal code was submitted by the President of the Russian Federation in the Supreme Council of 19 October 1992, he already foresaw the many changes that shaped the new criminal legislation of Russia: the priority of protection of life and health, the rule of international law and humanization of responsibility for crimes of small severity; however, this project was never considered by the Supreme Council, as it was rejected by the Committee on legislation and judicial and legal reform.

In 1993-1994, work was also carried out on the development of alternative drafts of the Criminal code. If the Special part of these projects generally coincided with the 1992 project, then there were significant discrepancies in the General part: such innovations as the introduction of criminal liability of legal entities, the division of criminal legislation into codified and uncodified, lowering the age of criminal responsibility, the introduction of punishment as the purpose of punishment, etc.

In October 1994, two drafts of the criminal code were submitted to the State Duma for consideration: the presidential one (based on the 1992 draft) and the deputy one (based on the results of the development of alternative drafts). A long and painstaking work began, during which more than 2000 comments received from deputies were considered. Finally, on June 19, 1995, the draft was adopted by the State Duma in the third reading, but the Federation Council rejected it. On November 24, 1995, the State Duma, after voting for the fourth time, re-accepted the draft, but in December it was vetoed by the President; a new conciliation commission was created and the draft was sent for re-revision.

Finally, on May 24, 1996, the final version of the Criminal code of the Russian Federation was adopted by the State Duma. On June 5, 1996, it was approved by the Federation Council, and on June 13, 1996, it was signed by the President of the Russian Federation.

Purposes

The main objectives that guided the legislator in the drafting and adoption of the new criminal code of Russian Federation was a desire to bring Russian legislation in line with modern hierarchy of social values in a democratic state, which declared itself Russia in article 1 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The highest value in a state governed by the rule of law is the individual, his rights and freedoms (art. 2 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation), bring Russian criminal legislation in line with criminological reality, ensure consistent differentiation of criminal liability, exclude ideological cliches from the criminal law based on the fact that the Criminal Code is a legal act, and the tasks of criminal legislation should be solved only by legal means, use world experience and legal solutions developed by the legislation and practice of other countries.

Development of criminal legislation in our days

The adoption of the Code did not stop the development of the legislative process in this area. Only from 1997 to March 2002 the State Duma of the Russian Federation was made more than 160 draft laws on changes and supplements of about 200 articles of the Code For example, in the first reading 30 bills were rejected, 40 were withdrawn and 19 bills were made. The Federal laws have added seven new articles to the Code, and 50 articles (14 articles of the General part and 36 articles of the Special part) have been amended and supplemented. The new Criminal Code was designed to fill in the gaps and provide law enforcement agencies with the legal norms which are necessary to combat modern forms and types of crime. They are related to the formulation of rules on complicity, recidivism, the subject of the crime, and circumstances that exclude the criminality of the act.

Structure of the Criminal code

Criminal law norms are contained in articles of the code, while one article may contain either one or several criminal law norms. Most articles of the code are divided into parts that are separated into a separate paragraph and have a numeric designation (1, 2, 3, etc.). Parts of the articles include items that have a letter designation. In addition, in some articles of the Special part of the Code there are notes where criminal law concepts are revealed or criminal law institutions are formulated.

The Code uses a continuous numbering of articles, chapters and sections. If new articles or chapters are included in the code, the numbering of existing ones is not changing, and the added articles or chapters are assigned the number of the structural unit closest to the content of the code with the addition of a digital designation, separated by a dot or an upper index: 104.1 or 104¹. If an article is deleted, the numbering of other articles is also not changing, and a corresponding entry is made in the place of the deleted article.

The Code is a codified normative act, characterized by internal unity and consisting of two parts (General and Special).

The General part

The General part includes 6 sections, 15 chapters and articles 1-104. Its norms define the General principles and provisions of criminal law, the limits of the criminal law in time and space, the concept and categories of crimes, persons subject to criminal responsibility, the concept of guilt, its forms and types, provisions concerning incomplete criminal activity, complicity in a crime, punishment, its types, goals and procedure for appointment, cases when a person can be released from criminal responsibility and punishment, features of criminal responsibility of minors, the concept and content of other criminal measures.

The Special part

The Special part of the code consists of 6 sections, 19 chapters and articles 105-360 and describes the elements of specific crimes, as well as lists the sanctions (types and amounts of punishments) for their commission. The system of the Special part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation reflects the priorities of criminal law protection: crimes against the individual are placed first, and only then crimes in the sphere of economy, against public security and public order, state power, military service, peace and security of mankind.

Differences

Structurally, articles in the General part differ from articles in the Special part. Articles of the General part consist just one element - the disposition, which formulates norms-principles, norms-declarations or norms-definitions. Such articles include, for example, articles 3-7, article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and others that specify the principles of criminal law, disclose their content and formulate the concept of a crime.

Improvement of the Criminal Code

The Criminal Code of 1996 introduced new chapters on responsibility for crimes against sexual integrity and sexual freedom of the individual (Chapter 18), against the family and minors (Chapter 20), crimes in the field of economic activity (Chapter 22), crimes in the field of computer information (Chapter 28), crimes against the peace and security of mankind (Chapter 34) and some others. During the validity of the criminal code, many changes were made to the norms of the Special part, including the appearance of a number of new articles: 1271 "human trafficking", 1272 "use of slave labor", 1421 "Falsification of voting results", 1852 "Violation of the procedure for recording rights to securities", 1853 "Manipulation of prices on the securities market", 1854 "Obstruction or illegal restriction of the rights of securities owners», 1855 "Falsification of the decision of the General meeting of shareholders (participants) of a business company or the decision of the Board of Directors (Supervisory Board) of a business company", 1856 "Illegal use of insider information", 1991 "Failure to perform the duties of a tax agent", 1992 "Concealment of funds or property of an organization or individual entrepreneur, at the expense of which taxes and (or) fees should be collected", 2051 " Involvement in the Commission of terrorist crimes or other assistance in their Commission», 2052 "Public appeals to implementation of terrorist activity or public justification of terrorism," 2631 "non-execution of requirements for ensuring transport safety at transport infrastructure objects and vehicles", 2821 "Organization of an extremist community", 2822 "organization of an extremist organization," 2851 "misappropriation of budgetary funds," 2852 "misappropriation of state funds", 2861 "failure of the employees of the internal Affairs of the order», 2921 "Illegal issuance of a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, as well as the introduction of deliberately false information in documents that led to the illegal acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation", etc. At the same time, the legislator decriminalized such acts as: knowingly false advertising (article 182), deception of consumers (article 200), leaving the scene of a traffic accident (article 265), false entrepreneurship (article 173), etc.

Directions for improving the criminal legislation of Russia

The criminal code of the Russian Federation is constantly changing, for just 10 years of its operation (from January 1 1997 to January 1, 2007), 25 laws were adopted, which made more than 300 changes to it.

Scientists call the following main areas of improvement of the Criminal code of the Russian Federation:

• Development of new, more effective types of punishment and improvement of existing ones in order to reduce the share of deprivation of liberty in the structure of applied punishments.

•  Updating and improving the norms on economic crimes in connection with the development of the legal framework of economic relations, the emergence of their new forms.

•   Updating and improving the norms on responsibility for terrorist crimes, as well as the norms aimed at countering organized crime.

•   Development of criminal legislation intended for use during military operations and in combat situations.

•   Implementation of the norms of international law in criminal legislation, bringing the criminal code of the Russian Federation into compliance with international legal acts.

•   Decriminalization of many minor crimes with the establishment of administrative responsibility for them.

See also

Criminal Law

Civil Code of Russia

Offences Code of Russia

References

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