Insignificance of the Act in Criminal and Administrative Tort Law: Nature and Content

The study develops an idea of the criminal legal nature of the insignificance of the act. The author arguments in favor of the fact that such nature is due to the differentiated approach of the federal legislator to assessing the level of public danger of actions and inaction provided for by criminal law. At the same time, the high role of the law enforcement officer in determining the scale of the threat posed by a specific offense for the object of criminal law protection is stated. Studying the mitigating and aggravating circumstances of the act, the personal characteristics of the offender and the line of their behavior, the court decides on the degree of public danger of the relevant act. Its minimal value becomes the reason for raising the question of recognizing the committed action or inaction as insignificant. The paper considers issues on categories of crimes that the offense formally falls under and thus can be assessed on the grounds of insignificance. It is argued against a well-known judgment that the insignificance of the act containing structural elements of the corpus delicti serves as the basis for evaluating what was done according to the norms and provisions of another branch of Russian legislation. A mechanism for developing the insignificance category potential at the level of an individual criminal wrong, known as a criminal offense, is proposed. The study offers a set of arguments proving the inconsistency of the position of the legislator and law enforcement officer on the issue of the possibility of recognizing an administrative offense as insignificant. Their essence boils down to the fact that the formal essence of administrative offenses excludes their differentiation into groups according to the level of harmfulness. This implies the inexpediency of using the category of insignificance in the legislation on administrative offenses.

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