No 3 (2021)

The paper considers a number of changes made to the Strategy of the Russian Federation National Security, which was approved by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on July 2, 2021, in comparison with the previous strategy approved in 2015. The study is important since a new strategy has been recently enacted, and a uniform understanding of the key concepts reflected in this document seems essential. Some issues related to the fixed definitions of such concepts as “national security of the Russian Federation”, “national interests of the Russian Federation”, “strategic national priorities of the Russian Federation”, “national security protection”, “threat to national security”, “national security protection system” are analyzed. The study compares the definition of the concept “national security” fixed in the Strategy of the Russian Federation National Security, which was approved in 2021, with the options for other definitions given in the similar documents that were previously in force in Russia during the post-Soviet period of Russian history. The study additionally focuses on the transformation of national interests of the Russian Federation, which are enlisted in the recent strategy. In particular, the paper discusses the wording “saving the people of Russia, developing human potential, improving the quality of life and the well-being of citizens”. The author emphasizes that undervaluation of the strategic importance of the social sphere as a security factor in the course of economic and political reforms may cause threat of loss of citizens’ confidence in government officials, which, under certain conditions, can lead society and the country to a constitutional crisis and the collapse of federal status.

The current structure of a criminal law specifying the constituent elements of embezzlement from a card is imperfect concerning both the disposition and sanctions for a committed crime. The researchers fairly emphasize the urgency of the problem but consider commonly every method of embezzlement of money from a card apart from others, not proposing complex measures to eliminate contradictions arising in the process of study. Although the researchers recognize theft and fraud as equivalent crimes in the degree of danger to the public, to identify the responsibility level, it is necessary to determine reliably all objective evidence of any criminal act, which definitely can significantly differ in severity of punishment for their commitment. The paper studies such types of crime as the money embezzlement from bank cards by third parties. The system of normative legal acts of the Russian legislation the difference of fraud from theft. The objective aspect of constituent elements of a crime, the list of signs typical for the facade of a criminal act, peculiar to such group of crimes as embezzlement, are specified. The author distinguishes the objective elements of two bodies of evidence, which can fall under the definition of money embezzlement from a bank card: theft from a banking account and fraud, in other words, fraud using electronic payment facilities. The author concludes on the necessity to introduce to the RF Criminal Code the design article 158.2 with the description of constituent elements of money embezzlement from a banking account (card) in the form of theft to improve and unify criminal law in respect of responsibility for such type property crimes.

Currently, the problem of domestic violence is quite urgent due to the annually increasing number of victims. Besides the increased attention from the legislation to this issue, the public itself is anxious about the existing situation: victims of domestic violence are treated disrespectfully as they either excessively draw attention to the situation that has arisen, or they are blamed for a late appeal to the law enforcement authorities. The paper defines the concept of domestic violence, specifies character traits of a person committing domestic violence as well as of a potential victim. Based on the analysis of litigation practice, the authors conclude on the absence of a unified approach to the definition of crime and the existence of gaps when punishing the third episode of a committed socially dangerous act. The analysis of data of the World Bank annual research “Women, Business and the Law” and the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs on domestic violence in the Russian Federation confirmed the existence of an acute problem, which remains unsolved on the legislative level for the rather long period. Within the current research, the authors propose introducing a new domestic violence body of evidence to the RF Criminal Code, whereby domestic violence should be considered willful damage for the life and health of a person being in the family, personal, or household relations. Specified innovations will allow significantly facilitating the work of law enforcement authorities and courts when classifying the acts and imposing a just punishment through the introduction of classified types of domestic violence when implementing the protection of rights of victims.

The constant need of researchers for the advanced study of the problems of guilt and responsibility is caused both by the tasks of improving legislation and law enforcement practice and the variability of people’s ideas about the grounds, limits, forms, and purposes of personal responsibility, and ideas reflecting the actual process of the historical development of social relations and the practice of their legal regulation. Using the methods of historical-legal and comparative-legal analysis, the author studied the activity of the legislator on distinguishing the intent and negligence as two forms of guilt when committing transport offenses, as well as differentiating between guilty infliction of harm and an incident. The author concluded that in the sources of Russian law of the 16th-19th centuries, the legislator strongly focuses on the internal (subjective) attitude of a person to a committed offense and its consequences, including transport offenses. The discovery and consideration of such signs of the subjective aspect of an act as guilt, motive, and purpose significantly influenced the act classification and the punishment appointment or led to release from liability due to the absence of the subjective aspect of an offense (guilt) as one of the elements of a crime. The study shows how the legislator considered the influence of a person’s subjective attitude to the committed act when establishing legal responsibility. The research indicates that a comprehensive understanding of guilt as an integral characteristic of a wrongful act, covering the relations between consciousness and will of a person both with the objective properties of own actions and its public assessment, began to develop in Russian law in the 17th century.