Protection of Citizens' Electoral Rights: The Problem of the Proportionality of Criminal Sanctions

Abstract

This article is a criminal law axiological study of the protection of electoral rights of citizens of the Russian Federation in modern conditions. The object and subject of research were determined on the basis of the analysis of current Russian legislation. The immediate object of the study are the Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation determining liability for obstructing the exercise of electoral rights or the work of electoral commissions; for violating the procedure of financing a candidate’s electoral campaign, electoral union, work of an initiative group conducting a referendum, or another group of referendum participants; for falsifying electoral documentation, documentation of a referendum, documentation of an All-Russian vote; for falsifying the vote’s results; for unlawful provision and obtaining of an electoral bulletin, bulletin for voting at a referendum, bulletin for an All-Russian vote. The main methodological instrument of the study is the «protection index» introduced into scientific discourse by representatives of the Ural Law School. In recent years the «protection index» has become widespread both in the general theory of law and in different branches of law, including criminal law. The use of this index lies behind an attempt to show the proportionality of sanctions for crimes against the electoral rights of citizens. The current article determines the methodology of the study, its goals and tasks. The authors suggest supplementing the existing methods with a new electoral protection index, which will allow them to better present the specific features of the subject under research. The diversity of criminal law sanctions for electoral crimes makes the research objectives considerably harder to achieve, but, at the same time, renders them more relevant and valuable from the practical viewpoint because the proportionality of sanctions is a problem not only of the theory of criminal law, but also the practice of determining punishments in criminal cases. Besides, the criminal law norm sanction is viewed not only as an element of the law norm, but also as a part of the criminal law regulation mechanism. The suggested method makes it possible to illustrate the proportionality of the sanctions for electoral crimes in criminal law norms and to formulate suggestions on improving the current legislation.