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The New Russian criminal code as a reflection of ongoing reforms

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References

  1. Editors’ note: In effect, the "Fundamental Principles" served as the general part of the Criminal Code.

  2. Prior to 1958, the doctrine of analogy was codified in RSFSR Criminal Code, 1926, art. 16: "If any socially dangerous act is not directly provided for by the present Code, the basis and limits of responsibility for it shall be determined by application of those articles of the Code which provide for crimes most similar to it in nature."Translated in Harold Berman & James W. Spindler,Soviet Criminal Law and Procedure 22 (2d ed. 1972).

  3. Editors’ note: articles 142, 198, and 209 are discussedsupra pp. 192–93. Article 227 generally restricted religious activities.

  4. RSFSR Criminal Code, 1960, art. 154, defined speculation as "buying up and reselling of goods or any other articles for the purpose of making a profit."Translated in Berman & Spindler,supra note 1, at 22.

  5. Za Chto i Kak Budut Sudit’ v Rossii … Novyi Ugolovnyi Kodeks (Proekt) [For What and How One Is to Judge in Russia … New Criminal Code (Draft)] (pts. 1–3), 2 Zakon 85 (1992); 3 Zakon 90 (1992); 4 Zakon 93 (1992).Zakon is a magazine supplement toIzvestiia.

  6. The draft was published twice in revised editions. Yuridicheskii Vestnik, 1992, No. 20;Prestuplenie i Nakazanie: Kommentarii k Proektu UK Rossii [Crime and Punishment: Comments to the Draft of the Criminal Code of Russia] (N.F. Kuznezhova & A.V. Naumov eds., 1993).

  7. In Soviet law, the special part began with the most serious offenses, "treason" and other crimes against the state; then followed crimes against socialist property and, finally, provisions on responsibility for homicide. In the new Criminal Code, criminal law protection of persons’ and citizens’ rights and freedoms has top priority; the interests of the society and state are secondary.

  8. Seesupra note 2.

  9. Sud Prisyazhnix: Vozvrashenie v Rossiu — Programma Meropriyatii po Etapnomy Vvedeniu Suda Prisyazhnich i Drugich Printsipial’no Novix Polozhenii Protsesual’nogo i Sudoustroistvennogo Zakonodatel’stva [Trial by Jury: Return to Russia — The Program on Measures of Gradual Introduction of Trial by Jury and Other Major New Provisions on Legislation Concerning the Judiciary and Judicial Procedure], Sovetskaia Ustitsiia, 1993, No. 3, at 2.

  10. N.S. Tagantsev,Russkoe Ugolovnoe Pravo: Lektsii — Chast’ Obshchaya [Russian Criminal Law: Lectures—The General Part] 46 (St. Petersburg n.d.).

  11. SeeUgolovnyi Zakon: Opyt Teoreticheskogo Modelirovaniaya [Criminal Law: The Experience of Theoretical Simulation] 78–79 (Moscow 1987).

  12. Editors’ note: Benjamin Ferencz,An International Criminal Court (1980); M. Cherif Bassiouni,A Draft International Criminal Code and Draft Statute for an International Criminal Tribunal (1987).

  13. Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind,Report of the International Law Commission on Its Forty-eighth Session, U.N. GAOR, 51st Sess., Supp. No. 10, at 9, U.N. Doc. A/51/10 (1996).

  14. Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court,Report of the International Law Commission on Its Forty-sixth Session, U.S. GAOR, 49th Sess., Supp. No. 10, at 43, U.N. Doc. A/49/10 (1994).

  15. Editors’ note: That is, the 1991 text. Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind,Report of the International Law Commission on Its Forty-third Session, U.N. GAOR, 46th Sess., Supp. No. 10, at 238, U.N. Doc. A/46/10 (1991).

  16. The first such effort by the Russian Federation was a program for strengthening the fight against crime for 1994–1995, which was decreed by the President of the Russian Federation on May 24, 1994. This program was based on a theoretical model of a comprehensive anticrime program developed by Prof. S.V. Borodin, a senior researcher at the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Science. S.V. Borodin,Bor’ba s Prestupnost’iu: Teoreticheskaya model komplexsnoi programmi [Struggle against Crime: Theoretical Model of a Comprehensive Program] (Moscow, "Nauka" 1990). In 1996, the government of the Russian Federation decreed the second federal program for strengthening the fight against crime for 1996–1997. Rossiiskaya Gazeta, July 24, 1996.

  17. V.V. Luneev,Tendentsii Prestupnosti: Mirovye, Regional’nye, Rosiiskie [Trends of Criminality: World, Regional, Russian], 5 Gosudarstvo i Pravo 7 (1993).

  18. Source:Prestupnost’ i Pravonarusheniia [Criminality and Law Violations], inStatisticheskii Sbornik [Statistical Collection] 17 (Moscow 1994).

  19. Source:Kratkii Analys Sostoyaniya Prestupnosti v Rossiiskoi Federatsii (dannye MVDRF) [Succinct Analysis of the Condition of Criminality in the Russian Federation (data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs)], 5 Rossiiskaya Ustitsiia 58 (1996).

  20. Symposium,Kontrol’ nad Prestupnost’i v Democraticheskom Obshestve (Materialy "Kruglogo" Stola) [Control of Criminality in a Democratic Society (Materials of the "Round" Table)], 10 Gosudarstvo i Pravo 54 (1993).

  21. Editors’ note: A recent report by Amnesty International documents that such "sacrifices" are liberally made. Amnesty International,Torture in Russia: "This Man-Made Hell" (1997).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Science, USSR

    Anatolyi V. Naumov (Professor of Law and Head)

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  1. Anatolyi V. Naumov
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This article was translated from Russian by Oxsana Gribakova, Class of 1997, Rutgers University School of Law.

Doctor of Legal Science 1975. The author participated in drafting several legislative instruments, including the 1991 Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics, the new Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and the Model Penal Code for members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

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Naumov, A.V. The New Russian criminal code as a reflection of ongoing reforms. Crim Law Forum 8, 191–230 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02677783

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