Theoretical issues of improving legislation on exemption from criminal liability

The development of rules of exemption from criminal liability as an important means of differentiating criminal-law exposure, minimizing criminal repression and humanizing penal relations is one of several trends of Russian criminal policy. However, its quality results in debates which demonstrate the number of legislative and academic proposals aimed at changing it. To determine the prospects of such proposals, they have to be summarized and evaluated. Quite often these proposals disregard the constitutional principles of exemption from liability, systemic principles of criminal law and its corelation with other branches of law. The essential issues requiring discussion when improving the regulations on exemption from criminal liability consist of the following: characteristics of subjects, appropriate procedural stage and the suitability of the conditional procedure for its application; the possibility of re-exemption of offenders who had benefited from it earlier; the corelation between dispositive and peremptory rules of exemption; differentiation of the grounds for exemption depending on the type of crime committed. Scholars have diverse and sometimes conflicting opinions on these issues. It appears that they can be holistically solved only in the process of a substantive update of the entire criminal law which should recognize: the absence of judicial prospects and the insignificance of harm as grounds for refusal to initiate criminal proceedings; the necessity to review the significance of positive post-criminal acts in the system of grounds for exemption and their recognition as conditions that, if completed within a certain period of time after release, will terminate criminal-law relations; development of a term for the implementation of criminal-law measures and revision of the content of legal sanctions applied upon release from liability; recognition of the preservation of the criminal-law status of an individual exempted from liability until the fulfilment of exemption conditions; possibility of a mandatory exemption from liability for crimes against private interests of citizens