ECHONOMICS: paradoxes of the economic amnesty

The state Duma approved the Presidential draft law on economic amnesty with a single amendment. The Deputies eliminated the article on the illegal banking activity, if the deed has been serious and done by an organized group of persons, from the document.

Expert’s commentary

Alexander Petrov, Advocate of the Criminal Proceedings Practice of the Law Firm "YUST"

This is the shortest amnesty I have ever seen. A very small number of corpora delicti is covered by it. And there is an impression that they were chosen arbitrarily, without any criteria. For example, the amnesty does not cover misappropriation or embezzlement (Article 160 of the Penal Code of Russia) – this is an economical crime no more dangerous to the public than other corpora delicti, which are covered by the amnesty. A paradox situation has formed around a classical fraud – Article 159 of the Code. This corpus delicti is also not covered by the amnesty, unlike its two qualified types - in the sphere of business activity and in the credit sphere. The latter offence types were introduced to the Code six months ago, and thus the persons, who were previously sentenced for those crimes under Article 159 of the Code, are not covered by the amnesty, even though their actions would be now qualified precisely as fraud in the sphere of business activity or in the credit sphere. Compensation of the damages done is a necessary condition for the application of the amnesty norms, thus all those who for any reason were not able to or had no time to do that are not covered by the amnesty.

The recording of expert’s opinion is also available: Echo Moskvy, Echonomics, 03.07.2013 (on air on 19:45).