A.I. Chuchaev, A.P. Firsova. The Essence and the Influence of Criminal Law Impact

Abstract: The term “criminal law impact” is relatively new for the Criminal law doctrine. It is fairly used in the special literature as the synonym of the legal definition for “measures of criminal law character.” Such approach can be explained by the content of our country’s Criminal and Correctional legislations standards regulating the problems of correctional, social, and educational influence on convicted persons. In this respect, the foreign experience of legal techniques is a good example. The extensiveness and limited gnoseological possibilities of the term “measures of criminal law character” caused the need of “enrichment” of the Criminal Law notions apparatus. The deficiency of this term is that it doesn’t reflect the integrity of the defined notion. As a consequence, the stable tendency of studying such measures by means of their comparative analysis with penalty has been worked out in the theory. The problem of their nature, however, is never raised. The more capacious terminological combination “criminal law impact,” on the contrary, has a precise content and prompts to carry out the systematic scientific analysis and to reveal the legal nature of this phenomenon. In the history of philosophy the term “essence” is defined as the starting point of things comprehension, the everlasting principle of their existence, the internal structure and the primary quality. Studying characteristics of criminal law measures, marked by criminologists, has made it possible to conclude that the definiteness of criminal standards, the restriction of rights, the provision of realization and the special purpose are the secondary, formal features of such system. Both independently and in their total combination they cannot show the exclusiveness and individual clarity of the studied notion. In this connection, none of these characteristics can fall under the category of having “essence.” The terminological interpretation and etymology of the wordcombination “criminal law impact” shows that this term specially emphasizes the nature of the state-enforcement activity, its connection with the preceding event. According to the analysis of the criminal law literature and the results of experts’ conclusions, it is the basis of the impact that is referred by scientists to the category of essential quality regarding to appropriate measures and this fact gives rise considerable divergences in the interpretation of other characteristics. The special purpose of criminal law is revealed in the struggle against socially dangerous actions committed by convicted persons that are prohibited by the criminal code. Meanwhile, the culpability of committing such actions isn’t the prerequisite of exercising criminal law impact. Some measures of criminal law nature can be applied to persons having committed a socially dangerous action in the state of insanity. Summing-up principles that have been stated above, it is suggested that under the essence of criminal law impact we understand the state’s return measures, applicable to the person who has committed a socially dangerous action prohibited by the criminal code.