Russian Journal of Economics and Law (Mar 2018)
Crimes against property: critical analysis of transforming the Russian criminal legislation and the practice of its enforcement
Abstract
Objective: to identify contradictions and inconsistencies between the normative-legal provisions referring to liability for crimes against property, as well as the facts of inconsistent and unfair changes in investigative-judicial practice due to ungrounded modification of criminal law and practice of its application.Methods: dialectical, historical, documentary, dogmatic, practical, systematic, complex, analytical, comparative-legal, statistical.Results: contradictions and inconsistencies were revealed between the normative-legal provisions on liability for crimes against property, as well as the facts of inconsistent and unfair changes in investigative-judicial practice, which arose as a result of unjustified modification of criminal legislation and practice of its application.Scientific novelty: the carried out critical analysis of the transformation of the Russian criminal legislation and the practice of its application allowed making conclusions aimed at improving the legislative activity of the Russian Federal Assembly and the interpretation practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. In particular, the article substantiates the following provisions: a) on the artificial creation of competition between the qualified and specially qualified corpus delicti of theft; b) on the inclination of the Russian lawmaking towards the Anglo-American legal family; c) on the incorrect unification of the general and special provisions in Art. 159 of the Russian Criminal Code; d) on the elimination of fraud as a form of theft with the characteristic criminal behavior, by the contents of Art. 1596 of the Russian Criminal Code; e) on the ungrounded change of law-enforcement in Russia unless it is connected with social-economic and (or) political-legal transformations in Russia.The research results show that the Supreme Court decisions contain: a) substitution of the concept of the “acquisitive goal” by the concept of “acquisitive motive” of property theft; b) ambiguous provisions on assessment of the crime under paragraph “g” of part 2 of Article 158 of the Russian Criminal Code; c) contradictory definition of the moment of completion (of corpus delicti) of administrative-legal acquisition of property by theft and the moment of completion (of corpus delicti) of the criminal-legal secret acquisition of property; d) provisions that prevent delimitation of the criminal-legal embezzlement of property from the minor waste of property and bringing the perpetrator to criminal or administrative liability; e) questionable advice to law-enforcers on the classification of theft that involves threatening life/health of the victim; f) contradictory explanation of the judicial practice of application of Article 163 of the Russian Criminal Code.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions should be used to improve the law-making activity and judicial interpretive practice.
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