THE INDIVIDUAL’S PUBLIC DANGER AND THE GROUNDS FOR EXEMPTION FROM CRIMINAL LIABILITY (REDISCOVERING THE LOST)

Abstract

The criminal law lists the types of exemption from criminal liability without defining a single system-forming ground for exemption. According to the doctrine, the position regarding the material ground is considered the most well-founded; however, its content remains controversial and is interpreted in various ways, including through the parameters of a minor or lost/reduced public danger of the crime and (or) the offender. Purpose: to investigate the correlation between the degree of public danger posed by the offender and the grounds for exemption from criminal liability. Methods: Empirical methods of description and interpretation, theoretical methods of formal and dialectical logic, and comparison are applied to research and evaluate various theoretical and practical approaches to the concept of “grounds for exemption from criminal liability”. The historical method is used to understand the dynamics of the legislator’s positions on the conditions and grounds for exemption from criminal liability, particularly concerning the consideration of the public danger of the crime and the offender’s personality. The system-structural method allows for the unified examination of norms on exemption from criminal liability and, taking into account their common features, the formulation of a unified substantive ground for exemption. Specific scientific methods, namely legal-dogmatic and interpretation of legal norms are applied in formulating the position on the advantages of the material ground for exemption from criminal liability, considering theoretical and judicial positions. Results: Taking into account current legislative provisions, relevant judicial practice in conjunction with the positions of previous years, the article concludes on the historical continuity of the idea of exemption from criminal liability due to the individual’s minor public danger. The material ground for exemption from criminal liability combines characteristics of the committed crime and the offender’s personality, indicating the potential achievement of the goals of criminal liability without conviction and punishment. This idea was vividly manifested in Soviet criminal law, then criticized in the early post-Soviet period, but it has not lost its influence.