Any committed crime entails an immediate reaction from the state, which is manifested in the use of criminal instruments against the guilty subject, which entails the onset of the adverse consequences for the latter.
Criminal law sanction - concept
In modern criminal law , sanction means one of the elements that form the body of the criminal law norm, in which this or that variety is determined, as well as the amount of punishment applied to the subject who committed the tort provided for by the disposition of the said legal norm. In addition , the sanction serves as a kind of indicator of the degree of public danger inherent in a particular tort prohibited by criminal law.
Classification of Criminal Sanctions
In modern criminal law, the classification of sentences is carried out according to their degree of certainty. Based on this principle, distinguish such basic types of sanctions in criminal law as:
- absolutely certain;
- absolutely vague;
- relatively specific;
- alternative.
The main varieties: absolutely definite and indefinite
So, we will consider in more detail what constitute the types of sanctions used in criminal law, with examples that characterize their features.
Sanctions bearing the name of absolutely certain establish both the only possible type of punishment and its exact size and, thus, exclude the possibility of making a choice of punishment. For example, imprisonment for life, a fine of a strictly certain size, the death penalty. Such sanctions are not applied in the current criminal law, since they do not imply any individualization of punishment in relation to the immediate circumstances of the tort and the personal characteristics of the offender.
Such types of sanctions in criminal law, as absolutely indefinite, do not establish the type and amount of punishment, but only contain such formulations that do not have specificity, such as: “apply punishment to the fullest extent of the law”, “punishable by martial law”, etc. . In the modern criminal law, this kind of sanction is not justifiably used, since their presence entails a high probability of judicial arbitrariness and violation of the fundamental principle of justice.
The main types of sanctions in criminal law: alternative and relatively specific
Punishment for specific crimes can consider all the conditions and causes of violation of the law. Such types of sanctions in criminal law, as relatively specific, provide for a specific type of punishment and determine either its minimum and maximum boundaries, or any one of them. Based on this principle, these sanctions, in turn, can be divided into:
- Establishing the maximum amount of punishment, for example, by the standards enshrined in Part 1 of Art. 228 of the Criminal Code, it is envisaged that such a measure as deprivation of liberty for a period of up to three years shall be applied to the perpetrator of the tort specified in this article.
- Establishing a minimum and maximum amount of punishment. For example, the provisions recorded in part 1 of article 105 of the Criminal Code, it is supposed to apply such a measure to the guilty subject as imprisonment for a term ranging from six to fifteen years.
Other types of sanctions (alternative) establish the possibility of applying for the tort two or more types of punishment, which allows the judicial authority in each case, in accordance with the features of the tort and the identity of the guilty subject, to impose a punishment that is most appropriate to the degree and nature of the offense. For example, the provisions contained in Part 1 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code, provides for the application to the guilty subject of a fine, or correctional work, or imprisonment.
Other sanctions
In addition to the above, it also makes sense to mention also such types of sanctions in criminal law - reference and cumulative. As for the former, these sanctions do not establish a penalty for the commission of a relevant tort, but contain a reference to the sanction of any other article of the criminal law. Currently, such penalties are not used in the current criminal law.
Sanctions, called cumulative, establish the possibility of applying to the guilty subject, in addition to the main punishment, an additional character, which can be either mandatory or optional. For example, the application of a punishment to the guilty subject, providing for the deprivation of the last liberty for a specific term while simultaneously depriving the right to hold a number of certain posts for the corresponding number of years.
So, having examined all the above types of sanctions that apply in modern criminal law, you can see that the latter, as an instrument of criminal law regulation, are designed to guarantee appropriate protection of state-public and personal interests from various kinds of criminal encroachments, as well as ensure the inevitability of punishment in maintaining the principles of legality and justice.