The development of criminal legislation of the RF for the protection of social relations in the sphere of economic activity: criminalization or decriminalization?

Although there have been constant changes and amendments into Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the RF, the legal rules protecting the social relations in the sphere of economic activity are not practically applied for the most part. This situation, in the scientists' view, can be explained by the following problems: blanket rules that have legal deficiency, verbalized dispositions, an imprecise definition of legal terms and concepts used by the legislator. The examples of this kind are Articles 171, 172, 172.1, 185.3, 185.5 of the CC of the RF. It is not a single fact. The legislator has not emphasized separate formal elements of crime within the rules formulation included into Chapter 22 of the CC of the RF. In particular, actus reus turned out to be vague and it resulted in abatement of a suit with the parties guilty of these crimes. This deficiency is a characteristic feature of the major criminal rules that establish the responsibility for an offence in the sphere of economic activity. Some elements in the dispositions of the rules were neither distinctly defined nor definite at all. One of the examples is the absence of a statutory definition for 'aggravated consequences' in the disposition of Article 183 of the Criminal Code of the RF. Furthermore, the lack of criminal rules can be seen in their practical application when difficulties arise in determining a subject of crimes prohibited by these rules. Article 186 of the Criminal Code of the RF which establishes the responsibility for counterfeiting serves as an example. Chapter 22 of the CC of the RF has heavy legislative deficiency as well. Particularly, there are no rules protecting corporate relations. The importance of these legal rules acceptance has been observed by theorists. Besides, it should be noted that Article 173.1 of the CC of the RF with legislative lacks that establishes the responsibility for illegal formation, reorganization of a legal entity must be under consideration. The proposal about its improvement has been put forward by theorists. Despite aforementioned problems, in the result of amendments into the Criminal Code of the RF in June-July 2015, other legal rules of Chapter 22 were subject to changes. For instance, under the Federal Law of 8 June 2015 No 153-FZ Article 187 of the CC of the RF was exposed to amendments. Moreover, due to the Federal Law of 29 June 2015 No. 193-FZ, changes were made only into the sanctions of Article 183 of the CC of the RF. In accordance with the Federal Law of 13 July 2015 No. 228-FZ, Article 170 of the CC of the RF was also changed. On the basis of this law, Chapter 22 of the CC of the RF was supplemented with Article 170-2 that implies responsibility for 'deliberately false information in the measuring plan, the technical plan, the inspection report, the surveying project of land or the map of a territory'. In this case, the legislator, within the chapter improvement, paid close attention to criminalization of acts, which in theorists' view is considered erroneous. At present, the principal way for the legislative change to be taken into account is decriminalization of acts.

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