To the Characteristics of Person Occupyting the Highest Position in the Criminal Hierarchy: Criminalistic and Criminal Procedure Aspects

Abstract

The authors use the analysis of investigation-court practice and doctrinal positions of researchers to raise the issue of determining the subject of the crime under Art. 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The authors describe a number of problems regarding the possibility of establishing and proving the guilt of a person who went through the criminal world’s ritual of “coronation” and thus acquired the status of a “thief in law”. The authors also present their own opinion on the fallacy of the lawmakers’ decision that occupying the highest position in the criminal hierarchy is an independent corpus delicti as it does not meet the obligatory criterion of public danger and, consequently, cannot be called a crime. The authors also believe that the abovementioned corpus delicti is, in essence, neither the action nor the inaction, but is an (actual) state, thus it cannot be called a deed and, correspondingly, a crime.