Bribery as a form of corrupt behavior

Currently, the phenomenon of bribery is of increasing interest to some researchers though there is no single interpretation of this concept in scientific and educational literature, as well as in regulatory documents. The paper emphasizes the necessity of studying this definition by revealing inconsistency and casuistry in the changes in criminal law over the past five years. In the work, bribery is assessed through such aspects as a public danger, latency, comparability, and internal consistency of laws and regulations. Bribery is dangerous not only for economic relations, it can affect the functioning of government bodies and commercial structures, some constitutional rights of citizens, and even human life. The latency of bribery is explained by its conciliatory, mutually beneficial nature, relations that take the form of a transaction. Regarding the consistency of regulatory documents, the norms of regulatory and protective (criminal) legislation are studied on the example of the Federal Law “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation” and Article 184 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Thus, the definition of “exerting unlawful influence” contained in the title of Article 184 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and borrowed from the Federal Law “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation”, is narrower in content than in the sectoral law. Arguments are presented on the lack of necessity to fix the concept of bribery in Article 110.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, while the refusal of the legislator to use this term in Article 184 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is critically evaluated. The author proposes two options for correcting the text of this regulatory provision.