Old Russian criminal law and space-time principles of its action

The basis of the process of norm-formation in Ancient Russia was based on the method of forming the casuistic rules, it was common to almost all state formations in the period of their development. The Old Russian norm was binomial and included a question and an answer which were constructed according to the type of logical implication. But there were a few exceptions. From the point of view of the modern Russian language such standards were based on the typical complex sentences with subordinate clause. Despite the fairly lengthy (casuistic) method of forming a criminal law ancient legislator managed to avoid the construction of the huge text. It was apparently due to the selectivity of fixing exceptional cases. Old Russian criminal laws were mainly descriptive as far as the dispositions were concerned. But as for sanctions they were absolutely certain. However, despite the difficulty of legal technique which was used to construct legal texts, they were very close and understandable to the common people. Moreover, the Old Russian criminal norm was ''emotional'' and reflected negative attitude to offences not only in disposition but in sanction, too. Stable terminological penal apparatus was formed in the first legal documents. Old Russian criminal legislation applies to different categories of people and personalizes the subjects of criminals and victims in almost every legislative document. Besides one of the peculiarities of Old Russian criminal legislations is a clear indication to the lawgivers and consequences of the failure of legislative institutions. The first principles of the criminal law are formed in time and space. First of all, Old criminal laws are intended for general learning but customary laws did not require it because our ancestors knew them ''organically''. With this object laws were published and taken down in writing on different material things. Nevertheless, it was not always effective because many people were illiterate and often isolated geographically. It was conductive to emergence of one of the first legal presumptions - presumption of the right to learning. Criminal laws of ancient Russia were adopted beforehand for a long time. And being the first positive laws they probably had unlimited retroactive effect and extended their provisions to all the acts, which occurred before they came into force. Laws, which were adopted by the grand princes, acted throughout Russia. Laws adopted by the appanage princes had, as a rule, limited spatial range of action. And laws were dependent on the territory of a principality or just the will of a certain appanage ruler. Nevertheless one of the fundamental principles of the criminal law - the principle of land - was sufficiently known to our ancestors. At that time the Old Russian State had sufficiently intensive international activity. It was conductive to the fact that international-legal standards had become a source of national criminal law.

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