Development of beliefs about criminal liability and compulsory educational measures of juveniles in the course of criminal legislation codification

The latest codification of Russian criminal legislation including criminal liability of juveniles and educational compulsory measures has been done under complicated social and political conditions. A central idea of codification relating to criminal liability of juveniles and educational compulsory measures was the idea of humanization of Soviet and later, Russian legislation which was reflected in the Fundamentals of legislation in the USSR and union republics on court structure 1989. This document entrenched the possibility for the establishment of juvenile courts and family courts in the union republics. The process of codification started with the development of the Theoretical model of general part of the Criminal Code. It was not either a draft or commentaries but was a form of research, the attempt to solve and sum up the essential problems of criminal law in a systematized way. The importance of criminal liability of juveniles was pointed out in a separate chapter of the Theoretical model. It contained the principles of criminal liability of juveniles, formulated special rules specifying the age of exemption from criminal liability for juveniles, categories of committed crimes, described the reasons and conditions for the replacement of punishment by compulsory educational measures for a juvenile and gave other provisions. The ensuing Draft Criminal Law of the RSFSR 1988, Draft Criminal Law 1991 as well as the Fundamentals of criminal legislation in the USSR and union republics 1991 which were not enacted due to the disintegration of the USSR were characterized by different approaches to the reasons for exemption of juveniles from criminal liability and punishment, the number and types of criminal punishments for juveniles, the number and types of crimes liable to criminal proceedings starting from the age of 14, the number and types of compulsory educational measures, the role of courts and juvenile affairs commissions in deciding whether it is necessary to exempt a juvenile from punishment and apply the compulsory educational measures. Moreover, they included a number of the tried and tested well-grounded scientific provisions. Being under the influence of a new ideological paradigm, the developers of the Draft Criminal Laws 1992 and 1995 did not bring the accumulated positive knowledge which was reflected in the above Drafts and the Theoretical model of general part of the Criminal Code to current criminal legislation. This explains its contradicting character and proves the need to follow scientificity in the course of lawmaking unconditionally.

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