История развития смыслового способа пенализации

Abstract

The “semantic” method of penalization aims at defining the role and meaning of punishment as a means of legal impact on social relations. Its history can be conditionally divided into three stages - “pre-state”, “potestary”, and “state”. The semantic method of penalization perpetuates the concept of crime and its punishability and is deemed in the main provisions of The General Part of the Criminal Law. In its historical developments, the “semantic” method of penalization changed its content and went through several stages, each of which can be characterized by the verbal formula of the state holding the exclusive right to punishment. As a result, the “semantic” method of penalization was reduced to the idea that “every harm deemed by the state as dangerous must entail deprivations and restrictions imposed by the state”. The emergence of criminal law as an independent branch meant a thematic consolidation of the most dangerous acts and most repressive means of punishment, which changed the “semantic” method to imply that “every harm deemed by the state as the most dangerous must entail the most severe deprivations and restrictions possible imposed by the state.” The appearance of the term “crime” was not accompanied by the simultaneous (parallel) appearance of the term “punishment” in the law. As a result, the “semantic” method was narrowed down to imply that “every crime must entail the most severe deprivations and restrictions possible imposed by the state.” When the generic concept of “crime” and punishment as its consequences were deemed, the “semantic” method narrowed down to “every crime must entail punishment.” The General Part made the concept of each crime's punishability irrelevant. This stage verbalized the formula “a crime must entail punishment.” The Soviet criminal law abandoned the “semantic” form of penalization in terms of punishability as a sign of a crime, but supplemented it with the role of criminal punishment in solving the tasks set before the Criminal Law. The refusal was of an ideological nature. The “semantic” method of penalization in this period can be expressed by the formula “punishment must protect the state from danger, including crime.”