Almost every person in my life has met those who do not mind getting rich at someone else's expense. Corruption or bribery is one of the global problems of our time, which many countries of the world face, and in the capitalist - bribery affects the entire state apparatus. It is not easy to get out of a situation where an official acts as a bribe taker or if a ransomware is blackmailing, but it is possible.
Definition
Bribery is a crime against the interests of the state, government and local self-government. Such activities lead to devastating consequences: rejection of employees in fulfilling their duties, undermining the authority of the government in the state, subordinating public and state tasks to personal interests.
Bribery is a system of relations between the population and officials, in which people are forced to pay for services or work provided by authorized employees of organizations.
The process of transferring material assets for the purpose of an unlawful result can be provoked by an official, and in this case, a bribe is punishable by law.
Bribery is the pursuit of inaction or the favor of officials in certain cases.
Kinds
Bribery crimes under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation:
- receipt: Art. 290 of the Criminal Code, with a 100-fold amount of bribery, imprisonment is 15 years;
- cottage: Art. 291 of the Criminal Code, with a 70-fold amount of bribery and imprisonment for 12 years;
- mediation: Art. 291.1 of the Criminal Code - with a 90-fold amount of a bribe, the sentence of imprisonment is 12 years.
Bribery processes:
- when money or other values are transferred by the giver directly or through an intermediary;
- through the exchange of services or activities that are employee responsibilities.
Bribery Feature:
- by the method of receipt: explicit (transmitted after discussion of requirements and services) or veiled (transmitted in the form of funds for a gift, on credit);
- by the nature of the actions: bribery (for the proposed behavior) and extortion (connivance, deviation from the norm);
- by time of giving bribery: bribery (negotiated actions) or gratitude (after pre-negotiated actions).
Bribery on the subject:
- securities of value to the recipient of bribes, property in any kind of currency;
- restricted property: narcotic substances, weapons;
- work or services of a property nature, including payment of debts, provision of movable or immovable property for use;
- by type of activity of the giver and recipient (business and total bribery).
Rollback - a form of bribery in which the consumer of goods or services makes a choice in favor of the supplier or company that provided him a bribe. In this way, the client receives a "present" from the company, and that, in turn, receives a percentage for the acquisition of the client, and all parties have mutual benefits.
Petty bribery
After updating the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the suppression of additional varieties of violations is provided. Small bribery of less than ten thousand rubles is recognized as such.
Amounts of small amounts are common as offenses among ordinary employees who accept offerings for the provision of basic and additional services, for shorter periods of time or actions not provided for in the instructions, that lie in the scope of their activities.
It may seem that petty bribery does not particularly affect social activities, but in fact the largest part of the population is affected. Therefore, offenses of this kind have the most direct impact on the authority of the authorities.
Responsibility
The provisions of liability are such that the offense of accepting money is fair to those in power.
Situations with bribery can be created intentionally, with the aim of prosecuting and removing the official from office or blackmail.
With voluntary recognition of bribery, the perpetrator is free from criminal liability, and the report of misconduct is considered voluntary, regardless of motive. If the decision on bribery is carried out by law enforcement agencies, then punishment cannot be avoided.
If material incentives of commercial or non-profit non-governmental organizations have been recorded, there is commercial bribery.
If the charge is proven, the perpetrator is liable for bribery under Art. 304 of the Criminal Code.
Corruption has a negative impact on trust in the government and on the economic condition of the state. According to the Criminal Code, bribery entails consequences in the form of a fine or imprisonment for the giver and recipient, regardless of the time of its implementation.
The degree of guilt is determined by the court, sometimes punished by deprivation of the amount of 200 thousand rubles or income for three settlement periods, correctional labor for up to 12 months, imprisonment for up to 2 years.
The intermediary has an opportunity of justification depending on the knowledge of the transferred funds. The bribe taker may win innocence if he voluntarily reports the transfer of the bribe to law enforcement authorities before the criminal case is considered. The application must be submitted precisely to the appropriate structure - for exemption from liability.
If an official issued an invalid document, then his liability shall be considered as bribery of art. Criminal Code and violation of activity. The receipt of remuneration may take the form of a bonus, part-time payment, but actions outside the service with the use of official powers will actually be paid.
Bribe or gift?
If the bribe is a non-monetary value, it can be presented in cash.
The nature of the bribe by size, in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation:
- valuables up to 3,000 rubles can be considered gifts;
- over 3,000 to 25,000 rubles - relate to bribes;
- 25 000-150 000 rub. - a significant bribe;
- 150 000-1 000 000 rub. - a large bribe;
- from 1 000 000 rub. - a bribe of a particularly large size.
Gifts to officials are not prohibited, although the code does not indicate what is called a present. There are no monetary restrictions on gifts, which implies that a box of chocolates can be considered a bribe, and a more expensive valuable thing - a gift. But gratitude to the person who performed the service in a quality manner is not prohibited.
If, before committing an action, the specialist was asked to do good work for gratitude as an obligation, such a situation cannot be considered an offense in the case of bribery, as well as an expensive gift bought after the service was performed, if there are no actions on the part of the official that were denied to other clients.
Detention Behavior
Based on the judicial practice of bribery, it is recommended that the prosecution act as follows:
- Avoid bribery
- when detained at the time of transfer, receipt does not agree to testify, require the presence of a lawyer;
- Do not touch the subject of the bribe;
- Do not discuss what happened by phone;
- refuse a lawyer provided by law enforcement officials;
- inform the investigator about the availability of his own lawyer;
- demand to wait for his arrival.
Protection
State authorities pay much attention to the numerous problems of bribery. Given the injustice of the prosecution and the severity of the punishment, it is important to prove innocence with the help of an experienced professional.
If there are charges in cases of bribery, the decision on punishment shall be made by court. To help in this situation, one cannot do without the services of a lawyer who is able to exclude or confirm the presence of direct intent from an individual who provoked a similar situation.
Among other reasons requiring the presence of a lawyer is the imperfection of the state system itself, which provokes citizens to give remuneration to officials and does not provide for other ways to receive services, as well as the possible provocation of a bribe by operational services employees in relation to the client.
The lawyer will reclassify the offense from criminal to administrative, help in imposing a lenient sentence, take care of revealing extenuating circumstances and acquittal.
The lawyer collects numerous evidence, visits law enforcement agencies, recommends a line of conduct in court, visits a client, sometimes in a detention center.
The prosecution does not guarantee that the court will agree to the allegations. Most of the jurisprudence in cases of bribery does not go beyond the activities of operational investigative officers. However, there are many violations, during which evidence of innocence is not recognized.
The main types of legal assistance of a lawyer on bribes:
- client consultation, oral and written;
- maintaining the interests of the client at the stage before and during the trial;
- formation of procedural documents (petitions, complaints);
- appeal of court decisions and investigations;
- legal support on appeal;
- collection and reporting of innocence, extenuating circumstances.
Crime qualification
Features of the crime:
- the money was transferred, but not received (sent and not delivered, placed in the desk drawer of the authorized person), the crime is considered incomplete, there is responsibility for attempted bribery;
- giving a bribe is carried out exclusively with direct intent, money is assigned for the performance of certain actions in connection with the duties of the service;
- the person is not aware of the fact or unlawfulness of the bribe, is not aware of the intent of the bribe-giver, carrying out the actions of transferring money - courier, employee, third party, there is no corpus delicti;
- if the submission of the bribe was entrusted to a subordinate, the responsibility rests with the head and the employee acts as an accomplice, there are various criminal characteristics of bribery;
- if, in the absence of authority, the paid actions are not ensured, there is an attempt on the part of the giver to give a bribe, and fraud against the recipient (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The bribe-giver is free from liability if he conscientiously participates in solving the crime and the following reasons exist:
- extorting a bribe;
- a message about giving a bribe on his own initiative.
Liability Exclusion of Bribery
Receiving a bribe in terms of composition does not correspond to fraud or abuse of trust, according to Art. 159 of the Criminal Code, representing various actions. In the norm of the law, the concepts are divided by the union “or”, therefore it is impossible to apply both cases to the action of the accused.
Deception - a deliberate distortion of the truth, deliberate misinformation in order to seize the property of the victim, giving him false information (circumstances) to induce the transfer of property voluntarily.
Abuse of trust - an action based on the employment and civil law relations of the fraudster and the victim for an agreement in the interests of the fraudster.
In case of fraud, which also excludes bribery under the Criminal Code, the victim is misled about the true purpose of the money or other values, under the influence of which he does not realize the true intentions of the accused.
Authorized actions such as access to the press, organization forms, production and use of false documents for their own benefit, cannot be considered bribery under Art. 290 of the Criminal Code.
Extortion of a bribe
The entire article 163 of the Criminal Code is devoted to extortion without a specific indication of money, and it is expressed in the intention to appropriate other people's values and willingness to harm the victim through violence, damage to property, disclosure of confidential data.
When extorting a bribe, an authorized employee acts on his own initiative, using authority, illegal claims and mental pressure, although the interaction of interested parties can occur on a voluntary basis, with the awareness of the offense of each of the parties. Such an act is punishable by imprisonment of 4-12 years.
Under the extortion of a bribe, both frank claims of remuneration, the provision of services, and the creation of the necessary conditions for this are considered. This includes an increase in the timing of decision-making (for example, consideration of an application for the acceptance of a land plot into ownership), and the use of an unforeseen degree of services (including opening a credit line), and the destruction of earlier receipts and so on. If, in addition to everything, the official resorts to threats to take actions that are unfavorable for the bribe giver, then there is no difference whether such an intention will be realized in reality.
The injured party should not give in to emotions, as well as resort to a hidden audio recording of a conversation with a ransomware - such data will be rejected in court.
Extortion victim behavior:
- possible ways to defer payment;
- file an application with the police: a communication strategy with the ransomware will be developed, the money intended for transfer will be marked, and other methods will also be used;
- operational service staff will take action for video and audio recording of what is happening;
- after the ransomware is detained, one should prepare for the investigative process, court, and appeal.
When extorting people more often do not dare to confront, but they should understand that the initiator of the requirements may appear again and repeat their actions.
The application for extortion must contain:
- date and time of the incident;
- ransomware name;
- amount required;
- the nature of the alleged threat;
- money transfer information;
- demand for action.
The document should be concise, accurate and refer solely to the existing incident. Make a statement in duplicate.
It is important to understand such a peculiarity of the law that not only the extortioner, but also the giver will be considered the culprit of bribery. However, if the extortion is proven, the injured party shall be exempted from the charges.
Provocation of a bribe
Under article 304 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, liability for provoking a bribe is provided , which looks like an attempt to transfer money without the consent of the recipient in order to create evidence of the offense by artificial means.
The norm serves in the interests of protecting officials, but the operational departments apply criminal prosecution schemes for people who are victims of provocation. Unreasonable indictment of extortion, commercial bribery cannot but lead to arbitrariness among employees of the authorities, abuse of power, infringement of the interests of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. It is not possible to trace the organization of the provocation by them.
A model of the expected criminal behavior and conditions for its reproduction are created. The embodiment of provocation can have a passive or active form of action of operational services employees - incitement. A provocation should include a situation where law enforcement agents violated the boundaries of a passive investigation and had such an effect on the suspect who caused the crime.