Criminal liability for crimes committed with extreme brutality and through abusive treatment: classification issues

Addressing the issues of classification of crimes committed with extreme brutality and through abusive treatment is caused, firstly, by the amendments to the criminal law provision on torture in 2022 – the introduction of the “extreme brutality” qualifying factor and the removal of the note with the concept of torture. The second cause is the trend in criminal policy observed in 2022–2023 – strengthening and extension of responsibility for crimes related to the special military operation. The paper deals with the analysis of signs of extreme brutality and abusive treatment contained in some articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the RF Criminal Code). The author lays main emphasis on determining the essence of extreme brutality as a novelty of Art. 117 of the RF Criminal Code and abusive treatment in the construction of part 1 of Art. 356 of the RF Criminal Code. As a result of studying scientific publications, guiding explanations of the resolution of the Plenum of the RF Armed Forces and judicial practice materials, it is concluded that “extreme brutality” and “torture” are unequal concepts; they are correlated as a whole and a part. In turn, the terms “abusive treatment” and “extreme brutality” are not identical. In some crimes (part 1 of Art. 356 of the RF Criminal Code), the first term covers the second one, and in others (Art. 245 of the RF Criminal Code), extreme brutality is differentiated from the abusive treatment content. To clarify the concept of extreme brutality, the author proposes to amend the existing resolution of the Plenum of the RF Armed Forces dated December 4, 2014 No. 16 and adopt a new resolution. The paper justifies the need to tighten responsibility for committing a crime under part 1 of Art. 356 of the RF Criminal Code.