Justice in Criminal Law: Current Status of the Issue

  • Fatima Mamedova Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Keywords: criminal legislation, punishment, criminal, appointment of punishment, restitution of damage

Abstract

The article is devoted to the category of justice in modern criminal law. The philosophical concept of justice, the development of the consolidation of the concept of justice in criminal law, the correlation of justice, social justice and the principle of justice are analyzed. A particular attention is paid to achieving justice in the design of penalties for criminal law. It is concluded that justice is a hierarchically ordered system of interconnected moral values, which implies a combination of higher moral categories in which freedom, limited by equality, embodies good in accordance with an objective order. The restoration of justice as a goal of criminal punishment is a condition approved from the standpoint ofmorality that arose as a result of a committed criminal assault of public relations, taking place in connection with the implementation of the punishment corresponding to the nature and degree of public danger of the crime, the circumstances of its commission and the identity of the perpetrator, and compensation for the damage caused. The categories“justice” and “principle of justice” are not identical. The moral category of good is a common feature, the distinction is made according to the degree of prevalence of the categories in question in social relations. The category of “justice” is a kind of foundation for the formation of the principle of justice. The principle of justice is expressed both in the doctrine of criminal law and in existing criminal law and practice. Its legal content is disclosed in the aggregate of the following requirements: justice of criminalization of acts, justice of criminal prosecution, justice of differentiation of responsibility, justice of the appointment and implementation of punishment and other measures of a criminal law nature. In modern conditions, the establishment in the law of criteria for the imposition of fair punishment acts as a kind of guarantee for the observance of the rights of perpetrators and victims. The legislator provides for three such criteria: the correspondence of the punishment imposed to the nature and degree of public danger of the committed criminal assault; compliance of the punishment with the circumstances of the commission of the criminal offense and compliance of the punishment with the identity of the perpetrator. The principle of justice in the text of the criminal law is not fully disclosed by the legislator, since its legislative structure is aimed only at protecting the rights of a person who has committed a criminal offense, but who has not suffered from a crime.

Author Biography

Fatima Mamedova, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics

Associate Professor, Candidate of Juridical Sciences

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Published
2020-03-12
How to Cite
MamedovaF. (2020). Justice in Criminal Law: Current Status of the Issue. Law Journal of the Higher School of Economics, (1), 148-168. https://doi.org/10.17323/2072-8166.2020.1.148.168
Section
Russian Law: Condition, Perspectives, Commentaries