Touching a Socially Dangerous Act: Legislative Regulation and Practice

The article is dedicated to the research of the correctness and validity of the legislative regulation of implication to a socially dangerous act. The authors note that one of the currently existing theoretical and practical problems is the presence in law enforcement practice of cases of attraction persons to criminal responsibility for implication to a socially dangerous act in the absence of a direct indication of this in the current Russian criminal legislation. The purpose of the research was to identify problems existing in theory and law enforcement practice, and to propose ways to solve them. When writing the article, methods such as analysis, synthesis, and generalization were used. Based on the analysis carried out, the authors concluded that unjustified disregard in law enforcement practice when bringing to criminal responsibility in the case of the implication of a mandatory predicate offense due to the direct indication of the criminal law. The article points to the need to develop rules for the qualification of touched acts in these situations, depending on the fact of awareness or ignorance of the touched person in relation to circumstances excluding criminal liability of the person who committed a predicate crime due to age or insanity. The authors noted that attraction to responsibility for implication a socially dangerous act of an insane person or a person who has not reached the age of criminal responsibility, if the touched person was aware of this, contradicts the principle of legality. At the same time, in a situation where the touched person was mistaken about the nature of the main socially dangerous act, he is liable for touching. In this case, it is necessary to qualify the deed according to the rules of factual error – according to part 3 of Article 30 and one of the parts of Article 316 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.