CRIMINAL POLICY REGARDING CRIMES COMMITTED IN THE SPHERE OF BUSINESS
Authors:   Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russian Federation), Zaitsev Oleg A. , Kashepov Vladimir P. ,   Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russian Federation), Nudel Stanislav L. ,   Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russian Federation)
Published: November 2020

In the article, the authors consider the problems of the formation and implementation of criminal policy in relation to crimes committed in the field of entrepreneurial activity in the context of the development of criminal and criminal procedural law and law enforcement practice. In the Russian Federation, special attention is paid to building trust between government and business; stability and predictability of legal regulation of economic relations; the formation of a law enforcement system that effectively protects economic rights and freedom of entrepreneurship. At the same time, the current norms on responsibility for crimes of an eco-nomic orientation in conjunction with procedural forms of criminal proceedings, as well as their actual implementation, cause justified concern in the science of law and law enforcement practice due to their imperfection. Ensuring the protection of economic relations should be expressed not only in combating economic crime, but also in the development of effective criminal law and criminal procedural mechanisms for protecting the legitimate interests of entrepreneurs who may be involved in the sphere of criminal proceedings. The leading components of Russian criminal policy in the field of economic security are such forms of legislative transformation as criminalization and decriminalization. The ongoing socio-political and economic transformations necessitate the decriminalization of certain acts (for example, in relation to pseudo-business; deliberately false advertising, consumer fraud, etc.) or require the criminalization of certain acts in the economic sphere (in particular, in relation to the falsification of a single state register of legal entities, illegal retail sale of alco-holic and alcohol-containing food products, etc.) The humanization of legislation is substantiated by modern concepts of substantive and procedural guarantees for ensuring the rights of entrepreneurs, aimed at mitigating measures of criminal repression, the need to maintain a balance of private and public interests that need appropriate legal protection. Modern criminal policy is inevitably associated with the further modernization of criminal proceedings, the democratization of its principles and means of law enforcement. At the same time, the main emphasis is placed on the creation of a special, favorable procedural regime in the conduct of preliminary investigation and court proceedings. First of all, this concerns changes in the procedure for applying preventive measures. In addition, in cases of crimes in the field of entrepreneurial and other economic activity, the criminal procedure legislation has undergone changes, fixing the features: the procedure for considering a report of a crime; initiation of a criminal case against entrepreneurs; the performance of procedural actions with electronic media, other items and documents seized in the course of criminal proceedings; release from criminal liability and termination of criminal prosecution, etc. It is concluded that, within the framework of the state's criminal policy, one should expect changes and additions to criminal and criminal procedural legislation aimed at strengthening trust between the government and business, the formation of a fair law enforcement system that can effectively protect basic economic rights and freedom of entrepreneurship.