Judicial discretion in criminal law policy. Changing the category of a crime by the court

Objective: to study the issue of the optimal scale of judicial discretion in Russian criminal legislation and to develop scientifically grounded proposals for improving legal regulation in this area. Methods: dialectical materialism, which involves combining a dialectical approach to cognition of the surrounding world with its materialistic understanding, and general scientific (system-structural and formal-logical, inductive and deductive, analysis and synthesis) and special (formal-legal, comparative-legal) methods of cognition based on it. Results: the problem of the limits of judicial discretion in criminal law stems from the legislator’s attempt to regulate the broad and diverse public relations by legal norms. Given the emerging law enforcement practice, the doctrinal view on the need to “narrow” the limits of criminality under Part 2 of Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code is considered debatable. Experts point out that there are no negative consequences of the expanded (since 2015) imposition of a suspended sentence for deliberate serious harm to health, committed with aggravating circumstances. The author opposes the arguments of those who consider Part 6 of Article 15 of the Russian Criminal Code to be a violation of the principles of separation of powers, justice, legality, as well as the norm to be corruption-causing. The proposal is to expand the exemption from criminal liability under Articles 761, 762, 90 of the Russian Criminal Code after decreasing the crime category. Scientific novelty: the article substantiates the author’s opinion on the differentiation of discretion existing in criminal legislation by nature (legal consequences). As a result, the author argues that the court must have a discretion to change the crime category, and attempts to resolve problems related to the implementation of Part 6 of Article 15 of the Russian Criminal Code. Practical significance: the formulated conclusions can be used in legislative and law enforcement practice in terms of optimizing judicial discretion, taking into account the goals and objectives of criminal law policy.