THE SUPREME COURT PROPOSED TO LEGALIZE MISDEMEANOR OFFENSE

The day before, a draft law providing for the inclusion of the concept of "criminal misdemeanor" in the legislation of the Russian federation was submitted to the State Duma. The author of the initiative was the Supreme Court of Russia, and the changes may affect two codes at once - the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code.

The essence of the innovation is to transfer a part of the crimes provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to the category of misdemeanors, thereby mitigating their consequences for the offender.

According to the draft law, it is proposed to recognize a crime of little gravity, which was committed by a person for the first time, as a criminal offense, and the sanction for which does not provide for real imprisonment.

More than 100 bodies of crime enshrined in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation fall under these criteria, slightly less than half of them are related to the economy.

At the same time, not all crimes that meet the above criteria can be re-qualified in this way. In particular, this list will not include acts for causing minor harm to health and crimes against military service.

What is more, the draft law contains a proposal for the introduction of two new sanctions - public and limited-paid work.

The latter are a kind of punishment in which a certain fixed amount is withdrawn from the salary at the convict's main place of work for a certain period. Its size can vary from 5 to 10% of the total monthly income.

At the moment, the draft law is about to be considered by the State Duma of the Russian Federation; months may pass before its adoption.