On the Indivisible Substantive Core of a Guilty Verdict

This article defines the minimum range of issues from Article 299 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation that must be addressed in a verdict of conviction. Otherwise, the verdict loses its purpose as a judicial act resolving a criminal law conflict and cannot be upheld by a higher reviewing judicial instance. It is concluded that the indivisible substantive core of a verdict of conviction is outlined by issues concerning the crime and the punishment of the offender. The study allows us to take a different look at the requirements for the legality and substantiation of the verdict, to answer practical questions such as the type of decision to be made by the reviewing judicial instance in the event of a gap or error in resolving a non-essential issue, and the further rational trajectory of the criminal case through the stages of judicial proceedings.