Practice of sentencing for intended grievous bodily harm without qualifying circumstances (Part I, Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)

Practice of sentencing for intended grievous bodily harm without qualifying circumstances (part I, Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) during the operation of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (CC of RF) has been analyzed in the scientific literature. In spite of the fact that researches were various on scale both in territorial, and in time aspects, they came to similar conclusions about the characteristics of practical penalization of the crimes provided for in Part I, Article 111 of the CC of RF. The above characteristics include a high specific weight of conditional sentences and sentencing to imprisonment below the average term under the sanction, although they do not correspond to the character and the degree of public danger of a crime. To analyze the practice of sentencing for intended grievous bodily harm, the author of the present article refers to the statistical data provided in the official reports of the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the Russian Federation within 2009-2017. Although, the percentage of those conditionally sentenced to a real imprisonment is considerable and makes during the above period more than 50%, it noticeably decreased (from 57, 01% in 2012 to 49, 26% in the first half of 2017) after the expulsion from the sanction of Part I, Article 111 of the minimum limit (two years of imprisonment) in 2011. This decrease was reached, mainly, due to the sharp increase in specific weight of those sentenced to a real imprisonment for the term not exceeding two years. The share of real imprisonment also increased in general: if in 2012, it accounted for 42, 55% in the structure of types of punishment, in the first half of 2017 it accounted for 50, 45%. Thus, the practice of sentencing of punishment tends to add greater criminal punitive measures. This statement is supported by the increase of specific weight of those sentenced to long (from five to eight years) terms of real imprisonment in the total number of those sentenced for this crime. The obtained results enabled us to conclude that the change in sanction Part 1, Article 111 of the CC of RF involving the exception of the minimum limit, cannot be regarded as unambiguously negative. The proposals of legal scientists on changing the sanction were caused by the need to solve two tasks - to reduce the risk of unfair sentencing and a turn of sentencing from an excessively lenient to an adequate one corresponding to the character and degree of public danger of a crime. The first of the above tasks, perhaps, was not solved since the framework of a judicial discretion became wider after the sanction of the minimum limit had been excluded. However, the change of the sanction partially solved the second of the mentioned tasks, having allowed appointing a real imprisonment for the term of less than two years instead of conditional sentences. Thus, the retaliatory practice has been more rigid in recent years than during the previous period.

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