Criminal Code of the Russian Federation establishes the legal framework for defining crimes, criminal liability, and penalties. It is divided into a General Part and a Special Part. The General Part sets out key principles such as legality, equality before the law, guilt-based liability, and fairness of punishment. It defines concepts including the categories of crimes, stages of criminal activity (preparation and attempt), complicity, and circumstances that exclude criminality. It also specifies the system of punishments, ranging from fines and compulsory labor to imprisonment, life imprisonment, and, in exceptional cases, the death penalty (subject to limitations).
The Special Part contains detailed provisions on specific offenses, grouped by protected interests. These include crimes against the person, economic crimes and environmental crimes. Each article defines the elements of the crime and prescribes corresponding sanctions. The Code also includes provisions addressing criminal liability of minors, with an emphasis on rehabilitation and educational measures, as well as rules on exemption from liability or punishment under certain conditions.
This Criminal Code punishes the following criminal offences: (a) the use of slave labor, including minors; violation of sanitary and epidemiological regulations, resulting through negligence in the spread of mass illness or poisoning of people; the production, storage, or transportation for the purpose of sale or sale of goods and products that do not meet the requirements for the safety of the life or health of consumers, as well as the unlawful issuance or use of an official document certifying the compliance of the specified goods, work, or services with safety requirements; (b) production, acquisition, storage, transportation for the purpose of sale, or sale of food products without labelling, including liquors and food additives; (c) purchase, storage, transportation, processing for sale, or sale of knowingly illegally harvested timber, illegal logging of forest stands, destruction or damage to forests; (d) marine pollution from land-based sources or as a result of violation of regulations for the disposal or discharge from vehicles or artificial islands, violation of legislation on the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone; (e) violation of veterinary rules and regulations; (f) violation of rule for control of plant pests, weeds, illegal cultivation, harvesting and trade of prohibited crops; (g) soil pollution by harmful products of economic or other activities due to violations of rules for handling fertilizers, plant growth stimulants, pesticides, and other hazardous chemical or biological substances; (h) cruelty to animals, illegal hunting, in particular of endangered species and with the use of prohibited hunting gear and hunting methods, illegal collecting and harvesting of protected plants and mushrooms; (i) air pollution; (j) Pollution, clogging, depletion of surface or groundwater, drinking water sources, water supply; and (k) illegal fisheries and catch of aquatic animals.
The Code also incorporates mechanisms for mitigating or terminating liability, including amnesty, reconciliation with victims, and active repentance. Overall, the Code aims to ensure the protection of individuals, society, and the state while upholding the principles of justice, humanism, and the rule of law within the national criminal justice system.