Significantly about the Insignificant: Practice of Applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Systematic Analysis of Current Official Criminal Policy and Controversial Judicial Practice)
Kolokolov N.A. Significantly about the insignificant: practice of applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (systematic analysis of current official criminal policy and controversial judicial practice). Penitentiary Science, 2024, vol. 18, no. 4 (68), pp. 411–427. doi 10.46741/2686-9764.2024.68.4.008
With this publication we conclude the coverage of results of the study of the paired category “significant – insignificant” in criminal law of modern Russia. Purpose: to present the previously announced research material on the practice of applying the provisions of Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation contained in the decisions of the First Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction, to give a substantive analysis of the rational and irrational in classifying certain actions as criminally punishable acts, and to present results of the monitoring of the practice of applying Article 158.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Methods: historical, comparative legal, dialectical cognition, analysis and synthesis, method of collecting information (interviewing a number of scientists and practitioners on the issue of their interpretation of Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The article contains results of the comparative analysis of both typical and organizational situations. The cumulative doctrinal knowledge about each of the analyzed categories is clarified. Conclusion: there is still no properly developed concept for correlating categories of “form” and “content”, “significant” and “insignificant” in Russian legal science. The author argues that the insignificance of the act does not depend on whether the corpus delicti incriminated to a particular person is material or formal. The main thing in the crime is the reality of the degree of public danger. The author supports theorists and practitioners who propose to bring the socially significant problem of the insignificance of an act in criminal law to the discussion of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
Keywords: Insignificance of the act (Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); paired categories; criminal law; fundamental principle of law; freedom of judicial choice; public danger; punitive law; offense; offense provided for by the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation; criminal misconduct; virtual (alleged) benefit of punishment; real social harm of punishment; judicial practice; unity of judicial practice
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