Quality of criminal law protection of the information constituting the state secret: problems of norms formation and criminal responsibility differentiation

Abstract

When a criminal law rule is applied, an important role is plaid by the quality of the rule structure. This is particularly important when it comes to the protection of such a value as security of the State in the area of state secrets protected by law. From the standpoint of the quality of the criminal law, the author reviews the latest legislative amendments in this field. Legislative norms analyzed in the article provide for the following constituent parts of crimes: Art. 275 of the Criminal Code "Treason;" Art. 276 of the Criminal Code "Espionage;" Art. 283 of the Criminal Code "Divulging State Secrets;" Art. 2831 of the Criminal Code "Illegal Receipt of Information Constituting State Secrets." On the basis of the quality criteria of the criminal law, the author identifies problems related to the formation of the Criminal Code provisions in question and, as the result of the survey, proposes new versions of the rules of law. In the author's view, one of such problems amounts to the low level of criminal responsibility differentiation and, as a consequence, the author proposes to differentiate criminal responsibility in accordance with the subject matter of the crime, i.e. a quality criterion of the information divulged.