Ein Vierteljahrhundert russisches Strafgesetzbuch: Entstehung, Überblick, Entwicklung

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990 s, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was enacted only in 1996 after long-lasting political struggles. The main priority of the criminal law changed: protection of a person instead of protection of state became the main target. Since that time the Russian Criminal Code was amended 255 (!) times. Special Part of the Code received 123 new articles. The majority of criminal offences was reformed many times, often at short intervals. Part of legal academia regards the numerous changes as a de facto enactment of “new criminal code”. Russian criminal law is regarded as instable. In general, one can identify two main tendencies of the reforms. On the one hand, the penalties for grave and particularly grave offences were aggravated. This development is partly owed to internationalisation of the Russian criminal law - in particular to the adaptation of the requirements of the Council of Europe since 1997. Organised crime, terrorism, extremism, corruption, crimes against minors are just a few examples of new offences provided in the Code. On the other hand, Russian criminal law decriminalises or decreases the penalty for minor offences. The liberalisation of criminal law with regard to economic crimes is part of the latter development. The main target of the liberalisation is to minimise the “unjust pressure” upon the business community by means of criminal law. Despite international success, Russia did not introduce corporate criminal law. The main critical point is the irreconcilability of the corporate criminal law with the fault principle of the Russian criminal law. Hence, Russian law provides for liability of legal entities only in the framework of administrative law. Numerous amendments to the classification of criminal offences, systems of sentencing and penalisation in the General Part of the Criminal Code have substantively contributed to the humanisation of criminal law. Notably, capital punishment is not formally abolished in Russian law. However, the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of November 2009 prohibits its imposition.