Misappropriation of entrusted military property: do we need criminalization?

The study of court and investigative practices on the embezzlement of entrusted military property enable us to conclude that there are factors stipulating the need to consider such crimes to be especially dangerous ones. These factors include: - misappropriation of the entrusted military property is connected with the extensive material damage to the state and with the impossibility to use both military hardware and military infrastruc-tural facilities; - the embezzlement of spares is often followed by the falsification of official documents of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation and results in data garbling concerning the availability, use and accounting of military property in the country; - the enhanced responsibility for safe keeping, economic expenditure and careful attitude towards military property is regulated by a set of special legal rules. The entrenchment of such additional obligations explains the need for raising the liability for their non-observance. When entrusted military property is embezzled, this does harm not only to the property relations (the decrease of property resources of the country) but to the interests of national security, military potential and defence capacity of Russia as well. The analysis of Russian legislation shows that legislators have always paid attention to the particular significance of military property for the interests of the state. This conclusion can be supported by the presence of crimes connected with intentional misconduct against military property in Article 207 of the Criminal Code of RSFSR (CC of RSFSR) 1922, Article 192 of CC of RSFSR 1926 and Article 250 of CC of RSFSR 1960. Moreover, the comparison of sanctions under Article 92 of CC of RSFSR and Article 160 of CC of RSFSR shows that Soviet law considered embezzlement of public property (inter alia military property) to be extremely dangerous. Current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation1996 provides for a separate criminal liability only for the loss of property arising from the violation of storage regulations (Article 348 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). There is no separate liability for intentional misconduct against military property. Conversely, a number of foreign states provide for an enhanced liability for the embezzlement of military property because of its particular danger. Thus, a detailed examination of misappropriation of entrusted military property enables us to conclude that such a crime damages both property relations and national security and state defence of the Russian Federation.

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