Socially dangerous consequences of criminal negligence: notion and types

A compulsory component ofcriminal negligence is the infliction of socially dangerous consequences. In 2003 the legislator considered that it was necessary toexclude the components of "material breach" and "serious consequences" from the article on criminal negligence. According to the newedition of Part 1 Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation criminal liability of official omission came only in case ofinfliction of large damage for the sum of more than one hundred thousand roubles. A part of the legal community estimated thesechanges positively. However, these changes were criticized by the majority of the authors, first of all, they had led to the unreasonabledecriminalization of negligence inflicting non-material damage. The arguments of these authors probably influenced the legislator; onApril 8, 2008 Part 1 of Article 293 received a new component: "material breach of rights and legal interests", and defines sociallydangerous consequences of negligence as large damage and material breach of rights and legal interests of individuals, organizations, asociety or a state. Large damage is property damage, its size is exactly defined and it is one million five hundred thousand roubles.Material breach as a component of negligence covers only non-pecuniary damage (infringement of constitutional rights and freedoms ofhuman, physical injury, etc.). It is appropriate to remind that in the judiciary practice, as well as in criminal-legal literature, materialbreach as a consequence of official malfeasances has always been understood broadly including infliction of property damage. Thesystematic interpretation of articles of the Criminal Law allows drawing a conclusion that the component of material breach used inPart 1 of Article 293 is a broader notion than large damage. It also includes infringement of property rights; and theoretically an officialcan be made responsible for negligence even in case of infliction of property damage in a smaller size than defined by the note ofArticle 293. Besides, negligence is not a crime against property and it is not right to pay attention to the question on the criminal liabilityfor this crime in dependence on the size the of property damage, which has been extremely overestimated by the legislator. Negligenceis quite often expressed in infliction of damage of a different kind. When estimating socially dangerous consequences of negligence, notonly property damage, but also other damage should be considered; and it is equally necessary to take into account whom this damagehas affected (an individual, an organization or a state). We suppose that it is necessary to specify only such a consequence of negligenceas "material breach of rights and legal interests of individuals or organizations or legal interests of a society or a state" in Part 1 ofArticle 293; Part 2 of Article 293 should be stated in the edition: "the same act, which accidentally involved infliction of large damage,serious health hazard, death of a person or other serious consequences".

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