Vol 5, No 3 (2019)

The article is devoted to criminal-legal characteristics of the false accusations with the aim of seizing someone else’s property as a form of corruption crimes, known to the medieval law of Moscow of the XVI century based on the analysis of public-law acts (statutory and labial letters), legislative (the Pskov Judicial Charter, Code of Laws of 1550) and other sources (notes of foreigners about the Moscow state in XVI century) substantiates the assignment of the considered compositions acquisitive criminal offences to the group of corruption-related crimes. The scheme of the criminal act assumed, first, the presence of secondary crime of false testimony, usually from a person already arrested robber, who pointed to their alleged «accomplices» of the obviously innocent locals. Secondly, the seizure by confiscation of property belonging to knowingly agreed and convicted of complicity in the primary crime. The acquisition of part of someone else’s property determined the selfish motivation of the secondary crime. Thirdly, especially the subject composition, the core of which were representatives of the judiciary and other officials –  a kind of organizers and active participants in the secondary criminal assault. This was the peculiarity of the analyzed tort, characterized by such a social and legal feature as complicity in a secondary mercenary crime of officials exercising their powers in the field of justice.

In article the problem of identification of corruption offenses in the ecclesiastical law of the Moscow state of the 16th century on the example of analysis of narrow and broad interpretations of a concept of simony is put. It is shown that church law acted on the principle of analogy, building the regulation of corruption offences related to the collection of illegal fees to the corresponding legal institutions known in the subsystem of secular law. In general, the Church was interested in legalizing illegal fees, which was carried out in two ways: 1) through the formalization of law and the legitimization of previously informal fees; 2) by turning informal fees into a legal custom and presenting those fees as voluntary «gifts». The second way was more archaic and, apparently, in the conditions of Moscow law of the 16th century the first way was dominated. As a result of the consideration of the sources of church law, the interpretation of corruption in the system of church law as a single subjective sin is seen as baseless. On the contrary, corruption offences should be studied as a systemic problem of church law, which is not subjective and is not related to the sinfulness of individuals. The originality of ecclesiastical law, the duality generated by it in interpretation of simony is emphasized, the explanation of survivability of this institute in ecclesiastical law of the Moscow period is offered.

Based on the analysis of legislative monuments of law of the Moscow state of the 15–16th centuries, public charters and narrative sources, the author attempts to define the terminology in the field of corruption in the Russian law of the period under review, distinguish and promise as a mandatory fee for the conduct of the judiciary of certain legal proceedings, regardless of the outcome of the trial, from the «secret bribe» and «secret extortions», which acquired at that time character of corruption offenses along with «extortion» and «bribery». The main aspects and features of corruption offenses typical for the period of the Moscow state are analyzed and disclosed. Not only such well-known monuments of the Russian law, like the Code of Laws, but also charters, labial mandates and other sources of law in the period of 15–16th centuries are studied. The author draws attention to the importance that the legislator of the period under review payed to the fight against local arbitrariness.

The article defines the main normative levels of formal sources of law, which, taking into account the achievements of domestic legal thought and the development of legislation, as well as judicial and international treaty practice, regulate organizational activities in the field of combating corruption. The features of the historical development of such regulation on the example of the analysis of the conceptual provisions of the draft of Russian Federal laws on combating corruption and on combating corruption activities are also considered. The conclusion is made about interrelation and interdependence of various levels of normative regulation of corruption counteraction as the general social phenomenon and fight against various types of corruption offenses in the Russian society.

The article attempts to formulate the principles of legitimacy of law since this issue is relevant but still remains debatable. Sources of law are being accepted in which «power law» prevails over «power of law». In Soviet society, there was no right at all, because instead of legal laws, the law of the Communist Party dominated. Among the basic principles of legal legitimacy author identifies the principles of constitutional fundamentalization, popular representation, election of the parliament, judicial control over legislative activity. In addition, the legitimacy of law is ensured by legislative regulation of the legislative process, public participation in the preparation and discussion of draft laws, and professional and creative use of the rules of legislative technology.

The article deals with some issues related to the understanding of the excesses of accomplices and the definition of the criminal – legal consequences of crimes committed in the appropriate conditions. The current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation establishes a definitive rule on the excessive behavior of the perpetrator of the crime, but does not regulate the criminal liability of this accomplice in the excesses, as well as the responsibility of other accomplices in the crime. In this case, the excess of accomplices who are not co-perpetrators of the crime is not unreasonably taken into account. This explains the choice of the purpose of the study – to determine the initial ideas of understanding the incident, not only the performer, but also other accomplices of the crime. Objectives of the article: to confirm the possibility of excesses of an accomplice who is not the perpetrator of the crime, to identify the limits of excesses of accomplices, to develop recommendations for improving the current legislation in this area of legal regulation, to formulate rules for the qualification of crimes in the conditions of excesses of accomplices. The main conclusions of the authors of the article – on the understanding of the excesses of the accomplice without deviation from the conceptual ideas of the doctrine of complicity, the universality of the rules of the excesses and the need to differentiate the responsibility of the accomplices in the excesses of any of the accomplices.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation stipulates that the Russian Federation is a state in which man, his rights and freedoms are the supreme value, and recognition, observance and protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen – the duty of the state; the rights and freedoms of man and citizen in the Russian Federation admit and guaranteed according to universally recognized principles and norms of international law and in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, they determine the meaning, content and application of laws and guaranteed by law. It is the responsibility of the courts to administer justice in order to realize the legitimate rights and interests of both society and the individual. The principle of inevitability of punishment assumes that society not only has the right to punish a person for violations committed, but at the same time, it has the right to alleviate the fate of a person found guilty by a court verdict.

The article is devoted to the study of typology of the personality of minors who commit crimes in organized groups. The characteristic of minors involved in criminal groups is given. The main causes contributing to the development of juvenile criminal inclinations are considered. These are the influence of the social environment, individual characteristics of the personality of the minor, social contradictions. The personality of juvenile offenders in organized forms of its manifestation is considered on the basis of characteristics that include socio-demographic characteristics, value-normative and need-motivational spheres of the personality consciousness, functional and social-role relations of an individual. The role of the leader member of a criminal group is indicated.

Disadvantages of legal regulation of the teacher’s (psychologist) participation in the investigative actions are well known. They consist both in the absence of norms determining the general procedural position of this participant in the proceedings and in contradictory legal structures that regulate the involvement of a teacher (psychologist) to conduct investigations with the participation of minors. The possibility of ambiguous interpretation of legal provisions can have serious consequences both in the form of violation of the rights and legitimate interests of minor subjects of criminal proceedings, as well as in the form of loss of a minor’s evidence of admissible evidence. In this regard, it is necessary to determine the status of the teacher and the psychologist in the criminal process, understand his role (function) in the proceedings and designate the scope of rights that ensures the effectiveness of this activity. The article describes the contents of the study conducted by the authors of the theoretical and practical problems of the teacher and psychologist’s participation in the preliminary investigation of criminal cases during which minor witnesses, victims, suspects, defendants are engaged in the interrogation, confrontation, verification of evidence on the spot and other investigative actions accompanied by the need to respond to the questions of the investigator or the interrogator. Being subjected to psychological pressure, minors face the need in protecting their interests from the adult, unrelated to the criminal proceedings, not interested in its results and having an experience in working with children and adolescents, capable to reassure a minor, explain the essence of the investigative action, help to establish mutual understanding with the investigator and thereby significantly reduce the risk of minor’s psychological injury. The concept of a teacher, psychologist is justified as an independent participation in criminal proceedings, formulates proposals aimed at improving its procedural status.

This article discusses theoretical and practical problems of a special procedure for criminal justice. A brief description of the idea of simplifying the trial by truncating the stage of proof is given. The purpose of the article is to identify some shortcomings of the regulatory framework and formulate proposals for further research, as well as ways to improve the legislation. The authors trace the legislative changes about the special proceeding, and express reasonable doubts regarding the compliance of the special proceeding of the trial with the basic criminal procedural principles. There is a comparison of the legal nature of the sentence in general and special order. The idea of the duality of the sentence is criticized. Special attention is paid to the dependence of the special proceeding on the consent of the victim, as well as to criticism of the procedure for appealing against the investigator’s decision to refuse the petition for concluding a cooperation agreement.

The development of domestic banking system at the present stage is undergoing another round of reform. The key segment that is undergoing changes is the Bank of Russia, which since 2013 has undergone a number of changes in the legal regulation of its status, including in the field of banking control and supervision. The article attempts to investigate some features of implementation of control powers by the Bank of Russia. The author pays special attention to the analysis of the new mandate of the Bank of Russia – the control event. This article attempts to reveal the main reasons for the introduction of this novel. Attention is drawn to the fact that the procedure of carrying out control measures by the Bank of Russia is governed not only by the Federal Law «On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia)», but also the Instruction of the Bank of Russia as of December 18, 2018 № 195-I «On the procedure of organization and carrying out by the Bank of Russia of supervisory measures against credit institutions and noncredit financial organizations, the procedure for sending copies of the report on conducting of control measures to the credit institution non-Bank financial institution with respect to which was conducted a test event».

This article discusses issues related to the activities of committees under the board of directors (supervisory board) of joint stock companies whose shares are owned by the Russian Federation. A brief review of the corporate governance of six joint-stock companies with state participation is under way. The study is based on the analysis of the internal regulatory acts of the societies under consideration, current legislation, and Russian and foreign legal doctrine. The author comes to the conclusion that most often in joint stock companies with state participation, audit committees, strategy committees, as well as personnel and remuneration committees are created under the board of directors (supervisory board). The activities of the audit committee in the light of changes in shareholder legislation are analyzed in more detail. As a result of the research, author’s conclusions are formulated on the positive dynamics in the area of improving Russian corporate governance and on the development prospects of such management tools, the place of the committees of the board of directors in the hierarchy of business company’s bodies is indicated.

The article analyzes socio-economic and information technology bases of criminalization of fraud in the field of computer information. It is shown that the socio-economic factor of conditionality of the criminal law protection of information and economic security is predetermined by the emergence and development in the modern world of the digital economy. As for information technology factors of conditionality of criminal law protection of economic relations, they are associated with the processes of formation of the information society. According to the author, under the conditions of action of new objective laws, paradigms of criminal law protection of property relations change, and the focus shifts towards protecting property and other economic relations in the use of information and communication technologies from various unlawful interventions and violations. It is concluded that the mechanism of criminal law regulation of information property relations requires the construction of new offenses related to the rules on traditional fraud committed using deception or abuse of trust in relation to exclusively alien things as objects of the physical world or right to property.

In the article the system of territorial self-government as a way of fight against corruption offenses in the Russian state in the middle of the 16th century is considered. The following problems are put: to find out against what corruption offenses this system was directed, how effectively coped with them. The main one for anti-corruption measures within the framework of the Zemstvo reform was the replacement of the local administrative and judicial apparatus with local self-government bodies formed by elected «best people.» In the issuance of Zemstvo diplomas, various fees in favor of volostels and tiuns were replaced by a fixed monetary hoard, paid in favor of the supreme power once a year, which significantly reduced the opportunities for manifestations of corruption. Moreover, a number of provisions of the Zemstvo diplomas specifically stated that there was no need to transfer to any officials «bribes and pominki», that is, an unexpected remuneration for the exercise by the Judicial Officer of his functions. According to the Zemstvo diplomas, the Supreme Power understood that new elected officials could also commit corruption offences, which included an explicit ban on accepting «gifts» in connection with the exercise of their functions, and the penalty for violating this ban was the death penalty.