Offences Committed in Transport According to the Russian Criminal Code of 1903
Authors:   Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology of the Law Faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Belokobylsky Nikolay N. 
Published: August 2024

Purpose. Criminal legislation has the task of protecting the state system and social system, their individual structures and institutions. The peculiarity of the Criminal Code of 1903, regarding these tasks, is that it was adopted in an exceptional and special historical period of time. First of all, this circumstance is associated with the period of time that covered the development of criminal legislation during the 19th century, which was reflected in its system, structure and criminal law norms. Secondly, as noted in the preamble of the Criminal Code of 1903, it is adopted in the context of the ongoing state and social transformations, taking into account the requirements of new decisions. Significant changes related to the formation of criminal law provisions providing for liability for violation of the rules of management, use, maintenance and disposal of transport. It should also be noted that the Criminal Code of 1903 represented and was the basis for the development of criminal legislation of the new century, including criminal liability for transport crimes. Methodology: dialectics, abstraction, analysis, synthesis, deduction, — formal legal method, comparative law method. Conclusions. Firstly, the second half of the nineteenth century is characterized by the active construction of the transport system and its infrastructure; secondly, the need arose to form special governing bodies that were not previously provided for in the structure of government bodies of the Russian Empire; thirdly, the safety of traffic and operation of transport required full legal support for the management of the transport system; fourthly, the organization of transport traffic required the formation of institutions and employees for the training of specialized specialists; fifthly, the task of uninterrupted operation of the transport system and the movement of vehicles predetermined the need for systematic maintenance and repair of vehicles and transport infrastructure, sixthly, points/ stations for the formation of trains, loading/reloading of goods and boarding/transfer of passengers deserved to be formed and provided; seventhly, the need arose to form transport teams, determine for them the place and time of meals, rest and interchangeability, and then, as a necessary component of any activity, the function of monitoring the movement of vehicles, especially their technical equipment, was predetermined in order exclusion of accidents. Scientific and practical relevance. To specify the categories of the Criminal Code of 1903 under consideration in order to determine their meaning and place in the current national criminal legislation and in the science of criminal law. Use the results in the preparation of regulations providing for liability for encroachment on the safety of traffic and operation of vehicles, in a complex modern management system in the field of organization and operation of transport, especially in international and related areas, as well as in the educational process when training specialists in the field law enforcement.