Category offense in theoretical and legal views of Aleksandr P. Kunitsyn

Abstract

The article is devoted to theoretical and legal views of Aleksandr P. Kunitsyn concerning the concept offense. The author analyzes the process of emergence of law and human rights as its type, in the context of which the right to perform acts is particularly highlighted. The paper examines the scholars’ views with regard to the concept, types, elements of the offense and the circumstances excluding criminality of the act. General theoretical ideas of Aleksandr P. Kunitsyn are compared with the views of his contemporaries — representatives of the science of criminal law — in order to determine the degree of their development. In conclusion, the stance of Aleksandr P. Kunitsyn concerning the issue of punishment is given. The author notes that Kunitsyn quite objectively and naturally describes the process of emergence of law within which he places emphasis on human rights. This emphasis is particularly relevant today. The division of human rights into primary and derivative is a perfectly correct guess that has been accepted by the legal science as a whole. Formulating the concept of an act inconsistent with the law, Aleksandr P. Kunitsyn uses neither “crime” nor “wrong.” However, the word “offense” used by him only within the framework of the general definition refers to the private law interpretation of a wrongful act. Classifications of types of offenses offered by him surpass classifications offered by his contemporaries — representatives of the science of criminal law — by definition, conciseness and depth of thought. This is a very rare phenomenon, since in most cases it is the developments of the criminal law doctrine that precede the actual general theoretical ideas. His views on careless form of guilt did not have analogues among researchers of the phenomenon of crime.