Mediation in bribery as a special type of complicity, reflected in Article 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The subject of the study is mediation in bribery as a special type of complicity in Article 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The authors consider in detail the aspects of its reflection in the specified article of the Special part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as a circumstance having a specific similarity with the methods of aiding and abetting, regulated in Part 5 of Article 33 of the General Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Special attention is paid to the issue under consideration to clarify the meaning and content of the explanations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, to study the opinions of criminologists in the field of criminal law, the rules of the Russian language and to identify the etymology of the origin of the word. The purpose of the work is to analyze the sign of mediation within the framework of Article 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for its attribution to a special type of complicity that has a genetic connection with the provisions of Part 5 of Article 33 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The research is based on the universal dialectical method of cognition. In addition, the article uses such general scientific and private scientific methods as analysis, synthesis, analogy, induction, deduction, historical, systemic-structural, formal-legal. The result of the work was the revealed dissonance in the acts of judicial interpretation related to the criminal law assessment of mediation actions carried out in a small amount, within the framework of Articles 204.1 and 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Part 5 of Article 184 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The authors have revealed that mediation in bribery, in essence, is correlated with complicity (within the meaning of Part 5 of Article 33 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The novelty of the work lies in the fact that it attempts to study mediation in bribery as a special type of complicity in the context of the systemic connection of the General and Special parts of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, with proposals for legislative transformation of parts 5 of Articles 33 and 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. At the end of the article, a conclusion is drawn about the imperfection of the norms on the types of accomplices to a crime regulated in the General Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In particular, the list of complicit actions in Part 5 of Article 33 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is closed, but it is more expedient to make it open, which, it seems, may lead to the exclusion of liability for mediation in bribery (Article 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).