The constitutionality of the provisions of a normative act in the interpretation of the Constitutional Court of Russia: approaches and arguments based on Dadin

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This article considers the judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in Dadin. The author presents an organizational and legal basis for a new type of decision that the Constitutional Court could pass based on the outcome of a case on the verification of the constitutionality of an enactment. The article highlights problems concerning the choice of this type of decision in Dadin. That the Court’s interpretation did not decriminalize the act prohibited by Article 212¹ of the Russian Criminal Code is a justified conclusion: firstly, decisions of the Court cannot be considered as acts of law enforcement, and secondly, when the Court rules that a criminal statute is unconstitutional, this does not automatically result in the statute being removed from the Criminal Code. The author focuses special attention on the Court’s conclusion that corpus delicti under Article 212¹ is material. The article shows that the arguments underlying the Court’s decision contradict not only each other, but also widely recognized provisions of criminal law doctrines. The Court’s judgment does not provide a proper analysis of the prevalence of the criminalized act, thereby excluding any evaluation of the criminal degree of social danger. This interpretation arises following problems with the practice of incrimination: firstly, from the subjective side of the crime, the interpretation does not clearly define the type of culpability required (intent or carelessness) and, secondly, from the objective side of crime, the interpretation does not resolve issues regarding the relationship between Article 212¹ and other articles of the Criminal Code (accumulation of crimes or competition of criminal law norms).

About the author: Alexey Nechaev – Researcher, Academy of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Nechaev A. (2017) Konstitutsionnost’ polozheniy normativnogo akta v istolkovanii Konstitutsionnogo Suda: osnovaniya i argumentatsiya (na primere dela Dadina) [The constitutionality of the provisions of a normative act in the interpretation of the Constitutional Court of Russia: approaches and arguments based on Dadin]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no.3, pp.134–147. (In Russian).

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