Issues of Criminal Liability of Legal Entities in the Works of Scientists of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation (ILCL) is the only scientific legal institution in Russia that has been conducting crosssectoral research on issues of criminal liability of legal entities for many years. In the context of the scientific and legal assessment of corporate criminal liability, the author examines the works of scientists of the Institute published in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods of the development of domestic jurisprudence. The article describes the research of international documents containing recommendations on the introduction of criminal liability of legal entities, as well as provides models of this kind of liability in the legislation of some foreign countries. The features of the responsibility of legal entities for certain types of crimes, such as corruption, economic and entrepreneurial orientation, are revealed. The purpose of the study is to analyze the formation and development of scientific ideas about the criminal liability of legal entities in their relationship with changing socio-economic relations and political processes in society, to identify on this basis trends in the development of corporate criminal liability and to predict possible options for the implementation of this institution in Russian criminal legislation. The methodological basis of the research is the dialectical method of cognition, general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and abstraction, and special legal methods. The results obtained and the main conclusions. In the works of scientists of the Institute, the nature and types of criminal liability of legal entities, on the one hand, are considered from the point of view of historical retrospect, on the other hand, they are revealed as a direction of development of criminal legislation, which has experimental models of approbation in the jurisdictions of many foreign countries. The essence of the institution of criminal liability of legal entities is to apply sanctions to these entities in criminal procedure for committing acts provided for by national criminal codes or other laws. At the same time, legal entities can be recognized as subjects of a crime, and only as subjects of criminal liability. In turn, sanctions for them can be both criminal penalties and other measures of a criminal nature. The legislative consolidation of such responsibility in Russian law will not require fundamental changes in it. The doctrinal foundation for substantiating the relevant legislative decisions is the works of scientists from the ILCL.