Public Danger and Expediency in Relation to Criminalization of Acts with Signs of Administrative Prejudice: Analysis of Theory and Law Enforcement

Abstract

Designed to normatively distinguish crime from non-crime, criminal legislation has regained administrative prejudice to the current criminal law. The number of relevant norms in the Special part of the Criminal Law has been increasing, which keeps up the interest of scientific community for this institution. Notably, both the substance of norms with administrative prejudice and incidental problems of legal and technical order become topics for discussion. Without exaggeration, one of the most complicated problems is  finding the grounds for criminalization of certain acts, since the researcher faces the need to explain the mechanism triggering the quality of public danger in an act similar to the previously committed, but lacking this quality. Generally speaking,  there objectively exist qualities that allow us distinguish criminal behavior from non-criminal. The analysis of the sources permits  identifying two points of view that have developed among the supporters of administrative prejudice in the criminal law, both views associate the emergence of public danger with a cumulative effect, which manifests itself either in the cumulative harm of widespread acts, or in the personal qualities of the liable person, prone to illegal behavior.Besides, we propose the idea of criminalization of certain acts with signs of administrative prejudice for reasons of expediency, in support of which we provide data on the law enforcement activities of the courts. Analysis of judicial practice and official statistics allows us to conclude that at the level of practical activity, the relationship between public danger and expediency as grounds for criminalization of the acts in question and the effectiveness of the norm is clearly manifested: the norms that appeared for reasons of expediency belong to the "dead". As for the assessment of the public danger of the acts discussed, the courts do not always share the approach of the legislator, although in general there is actually a differentiation of administrative and criminal responsibility.