CRIMINAL LAW AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE. INFORMATION LAW AND SECURITY
The Correlation and Interrelationship Between Criminal Liability and Criminal Prosecution from the Perspective of the Theory of Legal Relations
Keywords:
legal relation, means of legal regulation, conviction, criminal liability, criminal prosecution.Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of the correlation and interrelationship between criminal liability and criminal prosecution as criminal law and criminal procedural legal relations. The purpose of the study is to determine, based on the analysis of the general theory of legal relations, the moments of emergence and termination of the legal institutions under consideration. The methodological framework of the research includes the dialectical-materialist approach, general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, system-structural, logical), and specific scientific methods (formal-legal, comparative-legal, and historical-legal). The authors critically reconsider the doctrine of legal relations, questioning the admissibility of a dual interpretation of its structure proposed by S.S. Alekseev, and substantiate the necessity of distinguishing between a legal relation as a means of legal regulation and a factual relation constituting its subject matter. Based on the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence and an analysis of the norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, it is concluded that criminal liability as a legal relation arises exclusively from the moment a court’s conviction enters into legal force, rather than from the moment a crime is committed or a person is charged as an accused. Criminal prosecution, on the contrary, arises at earlier stages of the process, and procedural coercive measures form part of its structure but do not constitute a form of the implementation of criminal liability. The findings of the study are significant for a proper understanding of the relationship between criminal law and criminal procedural institutions, as well as for the practical application of provisions on limitation periods, criminal record, and crediting of pre-trial detention.
