Realization of the victim's right to compensation for the harm caused by the crime in modern conditions

Podustova Oksana Leonidovna PhD in Law Senior Researcher at the Department for the Study of Social Processes and the development of complex problems of the Law Enforcement Research Center; Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 125171, Russia, Moscow, Zoya and Alexander Kosmodemyanskikh str., 8 Oksana_91sb@mail.ru Murav'ev Kirill Vladimirovich Doctor of Law Head of the Research Center; Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 125171, Russia, Moscow, Zoya and Alexander Kosmodemyanskikh str., 8 murki@list.ru

Oleinik Vitalii Vasil'evich PhD in Law Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Law Disciplines; Far Eastern Branch of the Russian State University of Justice 680014, Russia, Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, Vostochnoye shosse, 49 vitalyaol15@gmail.com

Ensuring the rights and legitimate interests of individuals and organizations affected by crimes, and creating favorable conditions for restoring the rights of participants in criminal proceedings are among the priorities of criminal procedure policy. O.V. Anuchina ^[1], A.V. Endoltseva ^[2], O.A. Zaitsev, V.D. Potapov ^[3], S.A. Sinenko ^[4], A.A. Sumin, O.V. Khimicheva ^[5] studied the problems of compensation for victims of harm caused by a crime. Despite the sufficient volume of scientific publications devoted to problematic issues in the field under study, it is necessary to take into account that currently, due to the development of information technology, certain areas of ensuring compensation for harm caused by crimes are subject to further study.

With the adoption of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the state has embarked on a course to increase the importance of fundamental rights, protect individuals and organizations, and ensure full and high-quality access to justice ^{[6, pp. 12-13]}, which is confirmed by the principles of criminal procedure reflected in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, interrelated and mutually conditioned by a common focus on solving the tasks of the criminal process built on the basis of humanism, democracy and justice as integral qualities of a rule-of-law state ^{[7, pp. 421-422]}. However, the legislator focuses more on the implementation of criminal liability measures against a person who has committed a crime, the protection of his rights and interests, and does not pay due attention to restoring the rights of the victim and compensating him for damage ^{[8, p. 215]}, which leads to a situation in which the interests of the person affected by the crime come second the plan ^{[9, P. 33]}.

The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation constantly draws attention to the importance of observing and protecting the rights of citizens who have suffered from criminal attacks in his annual reports. Professor T.N. Moskalkova notes that the observance and protection of the rights of citizens affected by crimes is the constitutional duty of the state. Denial of access to justice to the victim of a crime, ineffective investigation, during which it is not possible to identify the person who committed the socially dangerous act and provide compensation for the victim, leads to a loss of faith in justice (Report on the activities of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Of the Russian Federation for 2023). It should be noted that according to statistics, the amount of damage caused by crimes in criminal cases completed by investigators of the internal affairs bodies in 2023 amounted to 197.3 billion rubles, and 82.6 billion rubles reimbursed during the preliminary investigation (Information and analytical materials on the state of work of the preliminary investigation bodies in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for compensation of damage caused by crimes, in 2023). In this regard, the organization of the activities of the preliminary investigation bodies remains relevant, during which, according to the claimed civil claim, it is possible to provide further compensation to the victims for the damage caused.

The issues of restoring the property rights of victims are also relevant in foreign countries. For example, the Liechtenstein Code of Criminal Procedure, by analogy with Russian legislation, also establishes the possibility of resolving a civil claim in criminal proceedings if there is no urgent need for the subsequent transfer of the case to a civil court, which creates a number of advantages, expressed in the absence of the need to pay a state fee and relief from the burden of proof. However, if the court decides that the conclusions drawn on the basis of criminal proceedings are insufficiently substantiated for judging claims for damages, the civil plaintiff is referred to the jurisdiction to resolve the case in a civil procedure. At the same time, this court decision is not subject to appeal ^{[10, pp. 44-46]}.

Historically, as socio-economic relations developed, civics raised the issue of the objective lag of legal regulation and the need to improve the legal regime of objects of civil rights ^{[11, P. 78]}.

As O.A. Tarnavsky rightly points out, the lack of an effective victim protection mechanism in Russia has remained a problematic issue for a long time. Taking into account the fact that more than one and a half million people are recognized as victims annually, the average share of penalties for each victim in compensation for damage caused by a crime is 44 rubles. 26 kopecks, while the maintenance of one convicted person in places of deprivation of liberty per month is 4,800 rubles, formed at the expense of bona fide taxpayers, including the victims themselves. from crimes ^{[12, P. 87]}.

At the same time, it should be noted that the low level of property penalties in favor of victims creates a situation of distrust of citizens of state bodies and lack of security in the framework of ensuring the implementation of the norms enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation regarding compensation for damage caused by crimes. For these and other reasons, victims quite reasonably regard contacting law enforcement agencies with a statement about the commission of a crime as an unpromising action, not only not worth the time and effort that will need to be incurred, but sometimes also quite dangerous due to aggressive manifestations that may follow on the part of the perpetrator ^{[13, p. 284]}.

If we turn to collecting fines and other payments in case of administrative violations, their effectiveness is enhanced, in particular, by the interaction of various digital services, including Public Services, banking and other applications, as well as email notifications to recipients. Constant reminders about the need to make payments, the reflection of fines in the personal account of a particular digital service, as well as the additional punishment provided for by administrative legislation for non-payment of an administrative fine within the prescribed period, as we believe, contribute to their payment.

So, for example, the effectiveness of collecting fines from the State Road Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation is 55.2%, housing and communal services arrears - 32.5%, wage arrears – 75.1%. At the same time, the recovery rate from crimes is only 3.9% (Monitoring the achievement of key performance indicators of the FSSP Monitoring of the achievement of key performance indicators of the FSSP of Russia, set for 2023), which once again underlines the low level of security of victims' right to compensation for harm caused by a crime, as enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

It should be noted that in the case of a court decision on a civil claim filed by the victim in the framework of criminal proceedings, the latter is issued a writ of execution, which he subsequently transmits to the enforcement authorities, and, given the above level of recovery on their part, it is possible to say that the victim's right to compensation for the harm caused by the crime (in this case) remains practically unrealized in practice.

At the same time, the court's decision is preceded by a significant amount of activity of the preliminary investigation bodies aimed at proving the nature and extent of the harm caused by the crime by conducting various investigative and other procedural actions, including conducting examinations, accepting a civil claim, processing documents securing the procedural status of participants in criminal proceedings, etc. In addition, there are often cases when it is not possible to recover the damage caused: the person who committed the crime has not been identified; the act prohibited by criminal law was committed by a person suffering from a mental disorder; the suspect, the accused died during the investigation, etc.

As a result, due to circumstances beyond the control of the preliminary investigation authorities, the problem of compensation for victims of crimes remains unresolved in practice, which, according to I.R. Shikul, is related to the general state of protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation ^{[13, p. 285]}.

Of particular concern in this regard is the constant growth of cybercrimes, the share of which in the total number of criminal acts in 2023 reached 35%. Only a quarter of them are disclosed, and the amount of damage compensated is critically small (The report of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation on the results of the work of the prosecutor's office in 2023 and the tasks to strengthen law and order in 2024).

In view of the above, in our opinion, the practice of interaction between the preliminary investigation authorities and credit and financial institutions on the exchange of information on blocking transactions on the accounts of "drops" due to their dubious nature is positive.

Thus, in the Udmurt Republic, due to the questionable nature of the cash flow, employees of Sberbank PJSC blocked the bank account of Mr. I., which was subsequently seized by the court at the request of the investigator as part of the criminal investigation. As a result, the seized funds in the amount of 70.5 thousand rubles were seized and returned to the victim S., who had previously transferred them to the bank account of Mr. A. under the pretext of making a profit from Internet investments (Information and analytical materials on the state of work of the preliminary investigation authorities in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for compensation of damage caused by crimes in 2023).

As an example of the security activities of the preliminary investigation authorities, we can also consider the practice of seizing cryptocurrencies. For example, during a search in a multi-episode criminal case on embezzlement using information and telecommunication technologies, the investigator of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region discovered the presence of cryptocurrency assets in the amount of 1.23548302 BTC (bitcoin), which is equivalent to 3.6 million rubles. The cryptocurrency for the specified amount was seized during the search by transferring it to a cryptographic wallet specially created for this purpose, the access password to which (LED phase) is divided into two parts and stored by the participants of the investigative action in two different envelopes. The investigator's request to seize the seized cryptocurrency has been granted (Information and analytical materials on the state of work of the preliminary investigation bodies in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for compensation of damage caused by crimes in 2023).

Thus, we consider it appropriate to adopt changes at the state level that provide for the possibility of reflecting the amount to be recovered from a court verdict in the personal accounts of citizens (for example, Public Services, <url>), additional penalties for intentionally delaying payments (a percentage of the amount of compensation), and commuting a suspended sentence to a real term of service. the provisions in the resolutions declaring the amnesty of the conditions for its occurrence after fulfilling obligations to return property and (or) compensate losses to victims, the provision of state installment payments, as well as the spread of the practice of seizing cryptocurrencies. These additions to the current legislation, in our opinion, will help to increase guarantees for the realization of victims' rights to compensation for harm caused by crimes and will create additional opportunities to encourage suspects and accused persons to voluntarily compensate for harm.