Theoretical and legal bases of classification of juridical facts in the penal law

The article considers the classification of juridical facts in the penal law, which receives insufficient attention from the scientific penitentiary community. The author notes that the division of juridical facts according to the volitional criterion requires the use of the "juridical acts", not "juridical actions", category, because it allows taking into account not only the activity, but also the passive behaviour of the person, that is, inaction, which, similarly to the action, can influence penal relations. In this regard, the article pays special attention to the lawful and unlawful inaction of subjects of penal relations. The classification of juridical facts of penal law according to the volitional criterion would be incomplete without considering the following facts-events: absolute and relative events and time-events. Opposing to a number of legal scholars, the author concludes that the state on a par with terms should be qualified as a kind of facts-events, since any state is independently of the direct will of the person (pregnancy, kinship, criminal record, intoxication, insanity), even if legal subject is "guilty" of causing the state. Particular attention is paid to law-forming, law-changing, and law-abiding legal facts. The author underlines that the penal science ignores impediments to juridical facts and does not include them into the list of legal phenomena affecting penal relations. The legally significant behaviour and juridical acts are considered as special types of penal facts. The registered legally significant behaviour of convicts is of particular importance for the penal enforcement legislation, since it reflects the result and quality of the corrective influence. The juridical act is a volitional behaviour of the subjects of penal relations aimed at a certain legal result, recognised and protected by the rule of law. In the penal law, a legal act is always "accompanied" by the creation and subsequent use of a legally significant document. The article also examines material, procedural and complex juridical facts contained in the penal enforcement legislation. In conclusion, it is noted that the proposed classification criteria are conventional, since one juridical fact can demonstrate signs of other facts. However, a detailed and substantiated scientific classification of juridical facts establishes the bases for the effective application of the norms of the penal law in specific life events.

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