You can’t mitigate it: in Russia the concept of “criminal misconduct” may appear

On October 31, the Plenum of the Supreme Court voted to introduce a bill to the State Duma, which provides for the introduction of a new concept into Russian law - “criminal misconduct”.

The “criminal misconduct” will be recognized as a crime for the first time a crime of minor gravity, for which imprisonment is not provided. These are about 80 articles of the Criminal Code: some types of fraud in the field of lending, payments or with payment cards, the sale of alcohol minors, a violation of copyright and inviolability of the home, infection of sexually transmitted diseases, disclosure of adoption, mild bodily harm.

Of the articles that can be used in political persecution, we can talk about slander, vandalism, preventing the work of journalists and election commissions, distorting information about the days of military glory, obstructing the activities of religious organizations or worship.

For "criminal offenses" will be fined, sentenced to correctional and compulsory work. For the first time committing a “criminal misconduct”, a person will not be considered convicted. The statute of limitations for the misconduct will be a year. True, a full criminal liability is still planned for malicious evasion for the “criminal misconduct”.

The Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova also supports the reform initiated by the Supreme Court. It is submitted in an explanatory note to the bill of the Supreme Court as an act of humanization of Russian law. However, lawyers and human rights activists who specialize in the problem of political persecution doubt that this proposal will be beneficial.

According to Pavel Chikov, the head of the Agora international human rights group, the introduction of the concept of “criminal misconduct” will complicate the already difficult system of criminal cases in Russia. At the same time, affecting articles rarely applied and without that not entailing serious consequences for the accused.

“Such disproportionate labor costs make the following steps showing the true reasons for the initiative. For example, a mirror translation into the list of criminal offenses of a large number of administrative misconduct, containing, for example, arrest as a punishment (including the organization and holding of public actions, disobedience to a police officer, etc.). And this is a completely different crankshaft, ”Chikov notes.

According to Svetlana Sidorkina, a lawyer specializing in political criminal cases, there is no need for “criminal offenses” in Russia: if there is a desire to humanize the system, a number of criminal traises could be translated into administrative ones. In her opinion, citizens relate to the Code of Administrative Offenses quite seriously: for example, an increase in fines for violation of traffic rules significantly reduced the number of incidents on the roads.

“It seems to me that in this regard, there may be two fears. That misconduct will be considered by courts according to some simplified order, which will reduce the procedural guarantees of the accused. And that in the Criminal Code, new compositions will appear under the guise of criminal offenses or in the future such compositions will appear. But if this does not happen, it seems to me that this is a good initiative - if they take off the criminal record for a number of actions. Decriminalization is always better than criminalization, ”says Denis SHADOV, lawyer of the Memorial human rights center.

If “criminal offenses” appear, the investigation will still have the opportunity to classify a number of actions according to heavier articles that will remain crimes. For example, acts of vandalism to issue hooliganism - if law enforcement officers need to put the accused.

“Legally this is an absolutely correct initiative. The question is how this will be applied, to qualify the investigating authorities and the court. Often there is the opportunity to qualify certain actions with different compounds.

Our main problem is not in the articles themselves, their wording, and not even in the sanctions provided for by them, but in law enforcement and in the judicial system. Any efforts to humanize criminal legislation can be crossed out by the lack of independence of the judicial system, ”says Natalya Taubina, director of the Public Verdict Foundation.