The evolution of the concept of penal actions for legal persons

Years of debate over the need to implement the concept of criminal responsibility of legal persons into the Russian legal system are shifting towards the practical direction. The draft of Federal Law № 750443-6 «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in connection with the introduction of criminal responsibility of legal persons" introduced to the Russian State Duma on March 23, 2015 is a decisive step towards the formation of a new sub-branch of criminal law in Russia The document contains a lot of interesting provisions deserving support, and accounts constructive criticism of the draft law of the Russian IC 2011. In particular, the suggest the introduction of corporate responsibility to the full extent. The authors of the draft haven't only used the "measures of criminal law in relation to the organizations" model. The definition of the guilt of a legal person (Article 96.3 of the Criminal Code) contains the forms used in the basic doctrines of foreign countries applying the concept of criminal responsibility of organizations: subjectivist concept of guilt (the theory of identification) and objectivist direction of guilt of a legal person (the theory of guilt of past behavior). The draft law provides for a wide range of basic and additional penalties that may be assigned by the court to legal persons convicted of crimes and the like. Skills Enhancement Institute of the Academy of the Russian Investigative Committee together with the investigating authorities and the Northwest Crimean Federal District hold a preliminary monitoring of the application of the proposed rules of criminal and criminal procedure legislation The monitoring revealed some problems that may arise in the enforcement activities in criminal prosecution against newly introduced subject. Some of them are offered for discussion in the article. The greatest difficulty, due to the stereotype of a perpetrator, is an understanding of the guilt of a legal person. At the same time, the author proposes to refer to the issue as being able to overcome Introducing the bill identifies uncertainties due to the emergence of new definitions which, without disclosing their content, can lead to problems with the criminal law assessment of the offense. In addition, many of the issues in the draft legislation remain unresolved: in particular, the procedural aspect of exemption from criminal responsibility of a natural person due to the involvement of a legal person. The author also notes the problem of correlation between public and private interests in the application of sanctions against the property of a legal person found guilty of committing a crime, which is not reflected in the draft legislation.

criminal responsibility, legal person, unified actor, guilt, bogus organization, Investigative Committee, draft law

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