Criminal and legal protection of the political system of Russia

The article substantiates the inclusion in the circle of crimes against the political system of the Russian Federation of acts provided for in Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, violations of legislation on elections to state authorities, local governments, and referendums that reduce or exclude the legitimacy of the current government, as well as obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists and other crimes committed for political reasons (Article 144 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); the article reveals the grounds for establishing criminal liability for acts against the political system in the form of their harmfulness (the ability to cause significant harm to the political system, its individual elements, subjects of political activity) and precedent (the possibility of repeating acts against the political system), which constitute the content of the public danger of such acts; criticizes proposals on excessive criminalization of acts against the political system; introduces proposals for improving the norms on criminal law protection of the Russian political system. In our opinion, the theory of criminal law should take a fresh look at the content of the public danger of an act, which is primarily taken into account when criminalizing it. We believe that the substantial characteristic of the public danger of a crime is revealed, firstly, through its harmfulness, i.e. through the ability of a crime to generate negative consequences for society (the ability to cause significant harm to the most important social relations protected by criminal law, or create a threat of causing such harm), secondly, through its precedent (its statistical indicator is the prevalence of the act), i.e. through the presence of human practice properties in the crime (the possibility of repetition of similar ones acts in the future). However, the ratio of these elements of the public danger of the act may be different. The higher the harmfulness of an act, the less precedent it may have for recognizing it as a crime. Thus, acts of armed rebellion (Article 279 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) are quite rare. However, their harmfulness is very great due to their ability to undermine the foundations of the constitutional system and the security of the state. In general, researchers point to a small number of reported crimes against the political system. However, the increased public danger of most of these crimes in the presence of small statistical indicators of their commission is a sufficient argument for recognizing them as socially dangerous and in need of criminalization. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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