Illegal Circulation of Amber, Jade or other Semi-Precious Stones, Precious Metals, Precious Stones or Pearls: Problems Determined by New Edition of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Changes made to Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation at the end of 2019 in order to eliminate gaps in legislation, in fact, created even more conflicts in the theory and practice of applying criminal and administrative law. The legislator has not fully calculated the risks of the new edition of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The elimination of these risks requires more changes to the federal legislation, the adoption of new by-laws. Within the framework of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation the legislator created a contradiction regarding the qualification of illegal circulation of unique amber formations. Russian legislation does not contain a legal definition of semi-precious stones, clarification of their difference from precious stones. The concept of precious stones does not prove to be successful, since it contains a list-based reference of a particular stone to the category of precious stones, which does not always really reflect the economic value of a particular mineral. The list of semi-precious stones at the level of the Government of Russia has yet to be approved. Taking into account the administrative prejudice as one of the conditions for criminal prosecution for illegal trafficking in semiprecious stones, it should be the same with the list of semi-precious stones established to bring an individual to administrative responsibility for similar offenses. The legislator did not pay attention to the issues of delimiting jewelry and household products and scrap of such products from the subject of crimes under Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. An even greater problem is the inconsistency between the norms of administrative and criminal legislation on liability for illegal trafficking in semi-precious stones.

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