We will soften something to you

The President proposed to facilitate the "entrepreneurial" articles of the Criminal Code

The State Duma received a draft amendments to the Criminal Code, again carrying the indulgence of the business. The author of the legislative initiative was President Vladimir Putin. One of the proposed innovations is a change in Art. 76.1 of the Criminal Code (“exemption from criminal liability in cases of crimes in the field of economic activity”), which offers the termination of criminal cases on minor economic crimes, with the condition that the accused has completely compensated for the harm caused.

At the moment, tax crimes are already indicated in this article, and the bill proposes to supplement them with a large part of “fraudulent” cases. We are talking about the softest compositions of articles 159.1–159.6, which set responsibility for fraud with loans and insurance, as well as fraud using electronic payment systems and computer information. The changes will also affect responsibility for fraud in the field of entrepreneurship, now described in part 5–7 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code. The punishment will be softer for some cases of waste (part 1 of article 160 of the Criminal Code) and causing property damage by deception (part 1 of article 165 of the Criminal Code).

The explanatory note indicates that the project is aimed at “further formation of a favorable business climate in the country, reducing the risks of conducting entrepreneurial activity, as well as the creation of additional guarantees for the protection of entrepreneurs from unreasonable criminal prosecution”.

Everything sounds wonderful. But it is unlikely that something will change. For the "softened" crimes that are discussed in amendments, and before that they did not put (either a fine or correction). Because the beloved of Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code (“Fraud on an especially large scale” - the size or group of persons by prior conspiracy “draw” is always possible).

And just no changes affect her. And the article is “rubber”, and thousands of criminal cases started on it. And they will start.

Therefore, the pre -trial detention center was crowded with overwhelming businessmen who did not want to pay for the “roof” or not wanting to be squeezed out and will be filled with them.

“This is another corruption field of activity. They simply expanded the feed base for the security forces, ”says lawyer Maria Sernovets.

“This is not a softening, but an imitation of softening,” says Krasnodar lawyer Mikhail Benyash. - The authorities for real humanization should prohibit people on economic articles. All. When we, lawyers, in the courts say: “How so, you close people in entrepreneurial activity”, the investigation, prosecutors and judges in the response: “This is not entrepreneurial activity.” They interpret how convenient they are. ”

Many lawyers agree on: it is better if the president, together with the members of the PMC, had once visited the pre -trial detention center, overflowed with "economic".

Or he visited some Tver or Basmanny court in Moscow and with his own eyes saw how the same type of decisions on the arrests of entrepreneurs are made with all the variety of alternative preventive measures.

Yes, people are not angels in the business field, and sometimes they really commit crimes. The only question is that they receive the punishment that is prescribed in the law, and not the one that the investigation and the court invented for them.

It is not difficult to evade softening amendments to the security forces. In order to “close” entrepreneurs, it is enough to add “difficult” 210 article of the Criminal Code (“Organization of the criminal community”) to the presented economic articles.

As for the huge amounts of damage, often the fantasy of the investigation in this matter is dimensionless.

“For example, in cases related to theft during the construction and supply of services for the state wards, investigators are taken from the ceiling,” says lawyer Ruslan Koblev. “More damage is more resonance, and then in court it turns out that the damage is three rubles.”

In the Yukos case, as I remember now, more than 60 trillion US dollars was spelled out in one of the episodes. Protection and accused tried to explain to investigators that in fact, this is more than 500 annual budgets of the Russian Federation and to kidnap so much is unrealistic.

"What, a lot of zeros is written?" - the investigators asked and, as a result, 12 zeros decided to cross out.

Lawyer Mikhail Benyash draws attention to the fact that in Russian legislation the qualifying amounts of damage did not change at all: 15 years:

“That's how in 2003 a major damage of 250 thousand rubles, and remained the same in 2018. There was especially large damage to a million rubles, after 15 years he remained the same. Imagine what the inflation has done with these amounts during this time? In reality, half the country can be transplanted. Our first isolator in Krasnodar is scored by businessmen. You can “pull” fraud on any civil relations and send a person to prison even for “major damage” of 250 thousand rubles. Therefore, it is necessary to change the qualifying amount of damage, increase it. ”

The second innovation from the president is the tightening of the requirements for the seizure of electronic media of information. Amendments prohibit this action without a court decision. But here there are reservations: if the investigation comes to the opinion that there is a risk of using the technique “to continue criminal activity” or on the technique there is information that the owner does not have the right to store, then everything can be without trial. What do you think will the investigation come to?