Ownership and property in the Civil and Criminal Codes

Nuosavybės ir turto teisinė problematika visada buvo ir tebėra aktuali įvairiose teisės šakose. Baudžiamojoje teisėje susiduriama su būtinumu paaiškinti, ką reiškia nuosavybė kaip nusikaltimų objektas ir turtas kaip nusikaltimų dalykas. Tuo tarpu pastaruoju metu imama tolti nuo tradicinių nuosavybės ir turto doktrinų tiek Lietuvos civilinės, tiek ir baudžiamosios teisių moksluose, į turto sampratą žiūrima kur kas plačiau, ši sąvoka nebetapatinama vien su materialiais daiktais, vis dažniau pabrėžiama nematerialaus turto svarba, analizuojami tokio turto priklausomumo jo turėtojui teisiniai aspektai. Straipsnyje autorius atkreipia dėmesį į nuosavybės teisės doktriną, įtvirtintą naujame Civiliniame kodekse, bando atsakyti į klausimus, kokių rūšių turtas gali ir kokių negali būti nuosavybės objektu, kaip užtikrinama baudžiamoji teisinė turtinės sferos apsauga galiojančiame ir naujame baudžiamuosiuose kodeksuose, ką reiškia ekonominis turinys kaip esminė turto savybė.The article deals with the concepts of ownership and property from the point of civil and criminal law. The necessity to disclose the content of these notions in criminal law appears explaining the property crimes and penalties. Entire chapter of Criminal code is called "Crimes against ownership", while "property" is used in many definitions as one of the most important legal sign of crime. Up till now the dominating legal concept in criminal law regards the ownership as a law of estate, strictly identifying property with material substance. Such a point of view groundlessly gets narrow the legal protection of property sphere by means of criminal law. The new civil code of Republic of Lithuania has legitimated the broader concept of ownership defining its objects as "things and other property" (art. 4.38). Trying to disclose what "other property" means, the author overviews different property theories: material, legal and economical those. The broadest economical property theory recognises that this notion accords all material and immaterial goods, which have pecuniary value and are able to become a part of person’s possession. In the light of the new civil code it is possible to say that some kinds of immaterial property may be the objects of ownership of a person (for example, property rights). At the same time the concept of ownership is still helpless to explain the belonging to a person such property goods as commercial information, prestigious place of trade, qualification of a personal of enterprise, great demand of production, good business reputation and so on. The main statement of the article is the conclusion that property sphere is much broader than the legal ownership relation, so in criminal law the protection must be given to entire property sphere, including ownership, other property rights and interests. The article also deals with the question of economical content as the essential trait of the notion of property. The author expressed the opinion that economical content of property means its importance to commodity circulation and possibility to estimate it with universal value index – money. The only subjective value given to the good by his owner cannot serve the criterion of regarding one or another thing as property. Such things (for example, personal letter) can be regarded as ownership, nevertheless it cannot pretend be called "property"