Universalization of the General Foundations of Punishment Inflicting: Administrative and Criminal Legal Aspects

About the author:

Alexey V. Sumachev, Dr. Sci. (Jur.), Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Process, Institute of the State and Law, Tyumen State University; alekssumachev@mail.ru

Abstract:

The article looks into the general rules (or general foundations) of inflicting the administrative and criminal punishments. The author concludes that the legislative reflection of the general rules (foundations) of punishment inflicting is both more substantial and structurally drawn in the Criminal code of the Russian Federation, than in the Code of the Russian Federation about administrative offenses. The circumstances of softening and aggravating the administrative responsibility (and the criminal penalty) are analyzed. It is noted that the legislative provisions in this part are rather universalized. Then the author defines the rules for the accounting of the softening and aggravating circumstances and their influence on the punishment individualization by defining a certain type, term or length of a punishment. It is noted that the reasonable formalization of laws regarding the punishment inflicting is a useful and even necessary phenomenon. Based on Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the author offers the option of determining the criminal and legal importance of a single taken (softening or aggravating) circumstance. For the sake of uniformity of jurisprudence, it is offered “to estimate” the fixed degree of the criminal and legal importance of the circumstance softening or aggravating a penalty ranging from 1/3 to 1/6 from a maximum penalty according to the sanction of Special part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It is possible to refer the rule to the process of inflicting the administrative punishment as well.

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