On Liberalization of Criminal Liability for Crimes in the Sphere of Economic Activity

The focuses on the problems associated with a number of changes in the provisions of the criminal law governing criminal acts in the sphere of economic activity. The authors describe recent amendments in Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and emphasize a number of positive changes, as well as their social significance for the protection of business from criminal offenses and excessive criminal repression of prosecution. However, the statistical data of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of Russia and analysis of the articles of the Criminal Code has shown low effectiveness of certain norms in the field of economic crimes that have recently been introduced into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The courts have not issued a single sentence for individual elements of the crimes since their inclusion in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which becomes more evident against the increasing (de facto) spread of these acts in Russia and testifies the problems of current legislative structures and the need for their correction. The reasons for the low effectiveness of law enforcement are caused by insufficient substantiation and elaboration of the regulatory framework in this area of public relations. Moreover, there is an acute shortage of qualified specialists for the investigation of this category of criminal cases. The authors make propositions on how to improve the current criminal law. Based on the statistical data and law enforcement practices, the authors conclude about formally confirmed absence of convictions under articles of the Chapter under study to suggest the ways to optimize both the law-making process and law enforcement practice.

Keywords

Authors

References