Articles of the Criminal Legislation of the Russian Federation Concerning Adverse Consequences for Human Health and Life

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the current criminal legislation of the Russian Federation in relation to crimes that provide for liability for causing harm to human health, in order to improve expert and legal tools for determining adverse consequences for human health and life. Research material: the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and its comments. Research methods: selection and fixation of information, grouping of data, comparison, analysis and generalization of the identified patterns. As a result of the conducted research, a complete list of articles providing for liability for causing serious (51 in total), moderate (30) and minor harm to health (27) was determined. There are articles in which the severity of the harm to health is not specified (10) or the vague term "significant harm" is used (1). A number of articles (26) have been identified, in which the term "harm to health" is used instead of the term "violence", which is specified in the Decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation or comments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation as "harm to health". It is concluded that the concept of harm to health formed in the criminal legislation is broader than the one established in forensic medicine. In the current legislation, there is an abundance and heterogeneity of terms used to describe independent types of adverse effects on human health and life. Unification of the concept of harm caused to human health is required. An original definition of this concept is proposed.