On Improving the Criminal Legislation of Russia Protecting Public Relations in Economic Activities
Authors:   Tomsk State University, Lozinsky Igor V. 
Published: February 2023

The article analyses the changes in Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the basis of RF Federal Laws No. 500-FZ of December 27, 2019, No. 73-FZ of April 1, 2020, and No. 352-FZ of October 27, 2020. As it has been established, these changes are not enough to improve Chapter 22, since they affect only an insignificant part of its norms. The changes under discussion have expanded the scope of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, since the new version provides for liability for not only illegal traffic in precious metals, natural precious stones or pearls, but also for illegal traffic in amber, jade or other semiprecious stones. In addition, its Part 1 now contains an administrative prejudice. Similar to Part 1 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the above changes have resulted in administrative prejudice in Part 1 of Article 193 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Its new edition provides for wider evaluative features, such as “on a massive scale” and “in especially big amount”. As a result, its scope has narrowed, which can be considered as the liberalization of criminal legislation that protects public relations in economic activity. The legislator has precisely determined the “massive” and “especially big” amounts in relation to Articles 198, 199, 199.1, 199.3, 199.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has been supplemented by Article 200.7, which provides for liability for bribery of an arbitrator, which indicates the “expanded” criminal law intervention in economic activity. The purpose of this “expansion” is to eliminate the legislative gap in the Chapter under discussion. Despite the changes, the problem of improving the Chapter has not been resolved, as it can be seen from the shortcomings of the legislative structures of Articles 169, 178, 183, 189, 190, 194 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The comparative analysis of the other norms that make up Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has shown that most of these norms provide for criminal liability for acts that, by their legal nature, do not constitute an encroachment on public relations in economic activity. Thus, in order to improve the criminal legislation protecting these social relations, the norms prohibiting the commission of acts that are not encroachments on these relations should be “transferred” from Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to its other Chapters. As a result, it has become possible to establish correctly the range of crimes against social relations in economic activity. They include crimes prohibited by Articles 171, 171.2, 171.3, 171.4, 172, 172.1, 172.2, 172.3, 178, 183, 195, 196, 197 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. By their legal nature, these acts are various manifestations of unfair competition. Therefore, the considered improvement should include the criminalization of new forms of its manifestation, such as discrediting the business reputation of legal entities, misleading consumers, and illegal issuance of all types of loans. The decriminalization of certain acts prohibited by the norms that constitute Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation can be considered as a way to improve the criminal legislation protecting public relations in economic activity.