Court Fine as an Alternative to Criminal Liability: Issues of Criminal Law Protection of Social Rights of Citizens

The institution of exemption from criminal liability with the imposition of a court fine, introduced in 2016 into the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, has become widespread in investigative and judicial practice. The relatively short period of its application shows the need to eliminate conflicts and gaps in the norms governing these criminal procedural relations. The author uses the scientific and practical approach to analyze the judicial practice of considering cases related to the exemption of the accused (suspected) from criminal liability on the specified basis and proposes ways to eliminate the identified defects of the criminal procedure law in the following way: (1) the procedure for considering a criminal case in case of non-payment of a court fine can be optimized by the legislator: if the suspect (accused) fails to pay the court fine, the latter can be replaced with compulsory work, which, within under Chapter 51.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, should be considered as a measure of a criminal law nature; (2) the possibility of imposing a court fine after re-sending a criminal case to the court after fulfilling the requirements of Art. 446.5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation may be legally limited; (3) the assessment of compensation for damage caused by the accused (suspect) should be objective, that is, it should be determined by the court on the basis of the investigated evidence and the factual circumstances of the case, not be solely related to the subjective position of the victim about partially compensating for damage; (4) the period for consideration of this type of cases should be increased to 20 days; (5) there are a number of other defects in the norms of the institution in question.

Keywords

Authors

References