Recommendations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the Application of the Provisions of Part 6 of Art. 15 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

The paper is devoted to the analysis of recommendations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation providing for the procedure of applying Part 6 of Art. 15 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation that was introduced into the criminal law environment in December 2011. With the adoption of this norm, both positive and negative assessments of this legislative initiative began to appear in special literature. Often, authors criticized the provisions under consideration due to the lack of detailed recommendations on the use of the provisions of Part 6 of Art. 15 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which would contribute to uniform law enforcement. With the adoption on 15 May 2018 by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of Resolution No. 10 «On the Practice of the Application by the Courts of the Provisions of Part 6 of Article 15 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation», some pressing issues were resolved. At the same time, there was some understatement on the pages of the resolution, for example, regarding the legal consequences of decreasing the gravity of a crime. We also witness contradictions of individual clarifications to the current criminal law. Taking into account that the resolutions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation are formally addressed to the courts, but in their activities they are actively used by lawyers, the academic community, and law students, the identified ambiguous points require further examination and an appropriate response from the Supreme Court.