Key Aspects in the Discussion on Legislative Regulation of Bullying

From the perspective of a legal and linguistic approach, the paper examines the issues related to the consolidation of a single concept of bullying in the legislation of the Russian Federation, the definition of the parties and responsibility for the commission thereof and other acts that contributed to its commission. The main problem is seen in an attempt to introduce special non-legal terms borrowed from other sciences into the legal field and use them in law enforcement activities without mapping them with the existing legal regulation and legal doctrine. The authors propose theoretically sound conceptual approaches concerning the need for legislative consolidation of the mentioned single concept (but not as a designation of a new corpus delicti, but as a generalizing term), its choice (preference is reasonably given to the term «bullying»), characteristics of existing legal structures providing responsibility for acts—individual manifestations of bullying. It is proved that the preferred direction of legislative regulation of bullying is the improvement of the mentioned structures, taking into account the consistency of the liability measures provided for by them. When defining bullying in a legal way, it is recommended to focus on the voluminous terms already available in the legislation, such as «extremist activity». As a measure aimed at preventing illegal activities (including bullying) in educational institutions, it is proposed to introduce an appropriate aggravating circumstance.

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