Criminal Liability for Assisting in the Execution of Decisions of International Organizations in which the Russian Federation does not Participate

In May 2023, Article 284.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation came into force that declared criminal offense for «assistance in the execution of decisions of international organizations in which the Russian Federation does not participate, or foreign government bodies.” The syntactic construction chosen by the legislator does not make it possible, using a literal interpretation, to unambiguously determine the range of actions the commission of which entails criminal punishment. The history of the emergence and approval of the initiative to include Art. 284.3 demonstrates a serious problem in modern lawmaking: the unexpected appearance and hasty adoption of projects that are not discussed in the legal community and do not receive proper expert assessment.

Goals and objectives of the study: to substantiate the doctrinal interpretation of the objective side of the act described in Art. 284.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as well as formulate proposals aimed at limiting the manifestations of so-called hasty lawmaking in the criminal legal sphere. During the research, the author was guided by the principles of the dialectical method of cognition (objectivity and comprehensiveness of consideration of the object of study, historicism, the universal connection of phenomena, systematicity), used general scientific (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, description, generalization, classification, analogy) and special scientific (historical) legal, sociological, legal forecasting) methods, and at the same time historical, functional and systematic ways of interpreting the law.

The assumption is substantiated that the emergence of the official interpretation of Art. 284.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the near future is unlikely, and a doctrinal interpretation is proposed, which may be in demand in criminal proceedings and investigative activities, as well as in preparing explanations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, relevant acts of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and a bill aimed at clarifying the text of the recently adopted criminal law. A number of proposals have been argued to introduce amendments and additions to the Rules of Procedure of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, aimed at limiting the passage of poorly substantiated bills with significant legal and technical flaws in the criminal legal field.

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