Is it true that Maraudo has recently decriminalized in Russia?

At the beginning of April 2022, some Ukrainian politicians, and followed by the media and Internet users, reported a fresh change in Russian criminal law. We checked the reliability of such messages.

April 5, 2022 Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko Placed In his Telegram channel (476,000 subscribers at the time of writing this analysis) post: “The Criminal Code of Putin's Russia decriminalized looting. Now this is not a crime - they officially have the right to do this. ” Soon, similar materials also appeared in the Ukrainian press - notes published, in particular, "RBC Ukraine", "Correspondent.net", SPROTYV.info And "Course of Ukraine". The authors of these materials emphasized that such a change in legislation occurred not so long ago. Users shared the screenshot from the Telegram channel Gerashchenko different social networks From Ukraine and other countries.

The screenshot published by Anton Gerashchenko was made on the site Base.garant.ruwhere the base of the legal system "Garant" is located. On this resource, various legal documents can be found - from the most important Russian laws like a civil or labor code to explanatory letters of the Federal Tax Service and other departments, from international treaties to court decisions. The guarantor offers its users and historical documents, for example, the codes of the USSR and individual Soviet republics.

The screenshot of one of these historical codes made Gerashchenko (moreover, this is directly indicated in the upper part of the image). The politician placed excerpt from the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, accepted Back in 1960. In this document really was Article 266 “Magistry”, which for “abduction on the battlefield of things located at the killed or wounded” provides for punishment in the form of “imprisonment for a term of three to ten years or death penalty”. After the Spitak earthquake in 1988, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR Recommended Judges to interpret this article wider, holding liable and civilians who took advantage of the consequences of natural and technogenic disasters.

The determination of looting, identical to the RSFSR used in the Criminal Code, migrated to the criminal codes of a number of post -Soviet states (for example, Armenia, Kazakhstan And the same Ukraine). Criminal Code of the RSFSR acted In Russia until January 1, 1997, when the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, adopted by a year earlier. In it, the articles "Magistry" really No -Back in the 2000s, this state of affairs Caused Discussions. Their participants, however, realized: it is not easy to clearly describe the essence of the crime, distinguishing the looting from similar punishable acts, and at the same time include masteers in such a composition of both military and peacetime. Moreover, part 1 of Art. 356 of the Criminal Code Provides A serious punishment, including for the "plunder of national property in the occupied territory."

Note that in the criminal codes of many European countries (for example, Netherlands, Poland And Finland) There is also no article about looting. Moreover, such a corpus delicti Select In the criminal legislation of Switzerland. Magistry in peacetime (for example, during the evacuation due to natural disasters), also known under the term “luting”, is punishable in a number of US states, in particular California, Illinois And North Carolina. 

Lawyer Denis Markov in a conversation with “verified” called not to look for malicious in the absence of a separate article on looting in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. “This is a common crime against property, which is fully covered by the compositions of the crimes provided for by Chapter 21 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” the expert explained. Markov also draws attention to the fact that, according to paragraph “L” of Part 1 of Art. 63, “the commission of a crime in a state of emergency, spontaneous or other public disaster, as well as with riots, in an armed conflict or military operations” is considered an aggravating circumstance. “Non -parting the norm on looting in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is simply saving legal equipment. There are already covering compounds, duplication is not necessary, even if it is required to somehow give weight, ”Markov sums up.

The absence of an article “Magistry” in the Russian Criminal Code does not mean that such acts do not provide for criminal punishment. So, in 2013, the court of the Smolensk military garrison He pronounced the verdict The four ordinary - they were found guilty under paragraph “c” of part 3 of Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Entities for the theft of someone else's property, committed on a large scale"). The military participated in a cordon organized at the crash site of the Polish President Lech Kachinsky in 2010, and one of them appropriated a wallet of the deceased member of the delegation. In the wallet there were bank cards along with Pin-codes from them-the soldiers managed to withdraw 59,000 rubles, the rest of the funds remained in the accounts due to the limit established by the owner. A colony was appointed to the ordinary wallet to the ordinary wallet, the rest - similar terms in terms of duration. Under the same article in 2008 excited The case against two policemen who stole the jewelry of passengers of the Boeing Aeroflot Nord company, which broke up at the Perm airport. However, the candidate of legal sciences Boris Chigidin Explained The “BBC” Russian service that the deadline for theft is that in Russia threatens the magor “in the worst case”.

Thus, the allegations that Russia recently decriminalized looting as “the abduction on the battlefield of things located at the killed or wounded” is not true. The norm from Soviet laws has been preserved in the legislation of some countries, but in Russia it has not been since the entry into force of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 1997. As lawyers explain, such a decision was made due to practical, not ideological reasons-the corpus delicti described in the Code and make it possible to condemn the marauder.

Photo on the cover: Graffiti in New Orleans (USA, 2008; Author: InfrogMation of New Orleans Via Wikimedia Commons)

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