Возрастной критерий уголовно-правовой деликтоспособности лица

Abstract

Tort capacity is the central institution of any branch of law that regulates tort relations. Determining the procedure and conditions for bringing subjects to responsibility, fixing the types and sizes of punishments to which they may be subjected, the legislator has no right to ignore the fact that the delinquency of these subjects is predetermined by their properties. Criminal law has a special role in the system of regulation of tort relations. Among all offenders, criminals are subject to the most severe measures of state-legal response. This article is devoted to the study of one of criteria of criminal law capacity – the age at which an individual can be held criminally liable, as well as the problem of the so-called age-related insanity of minors, which excludes the possibility of their participation in tort legal relations. The article presents a synchronous comparison of approaches to establishing the age of criminal responsibility adopted in the international community and in individual countries, as well as a diachronic comparison of these approaches in Russian criminal law. Regularities are revealed between the difference in approaches to determining the age criterion of criminal law capacity for delinquency and the difference in the scope of measures of state coercion applied to juvenile offenders. Three principles of establishment and differentiation of the named age criterion are defined. The examples of the current criminal legislation illustrate the adverse consequences of non-compliance with these principles. Based on the analysis of judicial practice, the problems of legislative regulation of the age-related insanity of a minor who has committed a socially dangerous act have been identified. The conclusion is made about the possibility of a conflict between the principles of establishing the age of criminal responsibility and ways to achieve a balance of general and private interests are proposed.