Interaction Between Civil Law and Criminal Law in the Protection of the Rights of Theft and Fraud Victims

Abstract

One of the trends in contemporary law is the interaction between its branches because an offense infringes upon a number of rights and interests of the victim that cannot be reduced to a single sphere of legally regulated relationships. This trend is reflected, specifically, in the interaction between civil and criminal law, which has attracted the attention of well-known Russian legal scholars many times. The trend is also observed in court practice, for example, in the Decree of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation «On Court Practice Re. Cases of Fraud, Misappropriation and Embezzlement» of November 30, 2017, No 48. It is also manifested in the use of civil law categories and criteria for the general and specific components of crimes like theft (Art. 158 of CC of the RF) and fraud (Art. 159-159.6 of the CC of the RF), as well as in the use of vindication and compensation of losses to protect the rights of victims of such crimes. Civil law defense of the rights of victims of theft and fraud (the use of such methods of protection as vindication and compensation of losses) encounters the ambiguous position of courts because the doctrine incorporates disputable and unsettled issues regarding the methods of protecting rights. This paper analyzes such problems and presents some ways of solving them. Overcoming the theoretical and practical problems of interaction between civil and criminal law is of vital importance because it is a vital precondition for the efficient functioning of the law enforcement system as a whole when implementing various forms and methods of protecting the rights of people.