Modernity is characterized by rampant crime around the world. This can be attributed to many political, economic and social factors. To combat this evil, there is criminal law, which is a combination of legal norms, which are the normative base that allows establishing punishability for committed acts.
When committing an offense, a person may be mistaken in his circumstances. A mistake can affect the content of guilt, which ultimately affects the limits of criminal liability. That is why it is very important to know exactly what is meant by the term “error in criminal law”.
There are various definitions of error in the specialized criminal law literature. The main disadvantage of all these concepts can be considered that the emphasis in them is placed on one specific aspect, which is inherent in it. But what is a criminal error? What types exist?
What is a criminal error?
A mistake in criminal law is an incorrect assessment by a person who has transgressed the law of the actual or legal nature of his acts or omissions and their consequences.
In some cases, it can greatly affect the punishment of a person who is accused of a particular crime, so it is very important to understand exactly what mistakes happen and think carefully before committing them.
It is necessary to clarify all points not only with the definition of error as an important circumstance for assessing the behavior of a criminal person, but also with the construction of some rules for its qualification. To achieve the goal, you will have to solve several important tasks:
- To analyze the features and nuances of determining errors in the legislation in criminal law.
- To distinguish between actual errors and legal errors and determine their impact on liability.
- Analysis of the separation of crimes that are associated with factual errors.
- Examine error laws in other countries.
The meaning of a criminal error
The person who committed the crime is sometimes mistaken about the circumstances of his act or his assessment of the legal side. So, for example, the guilty person believes that he does not cause death to a person, but in fact he takes his life. Or he is convinced that his actions can not lead to death, but in fact it happened that the victim died.
In this case, an erroneous representation cannot but be taken into account when the actions of the perpetrator are qualified, when the error concerns a fact that forms an element of the corpus delicti. When qualifying a crime, they always take into account the subjective idea of ​​a person about the act committed by him. In this case, it is necessary to correlate the view with the objective circumstances of what happened. In this case, objectively committed and subjectively perceived are equally important in establishing the qualification of a crime. But in those cases, if these aspects do not coincide, preference should be given to subjective imputation.
In the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation, the issue of error cannot be resolved. It must be solved in the literature on law and in law enforcement.
Today, it is common practice to divide all errors into factual and legal. This qualification has been used for quite some time. Even in the distant past, N. S. Tagantsev distinguished between a mistake that relates to factual circumstances, and another that relates to legal provisions. Currently, there are many other classifications.
Classification of errors in criminal law
P.S. Dagel was able to divide all the errors into several varieties:
- on the subject;
- for reasons of origin - apologizing or not apologizing;
- in its significance - significant or not;
- by degree of justification - guilty or innocent.
The difference between the actual and legal errors in criminal law is as follows:
- actual - this is when a person is mistaken about the circumstances that relate to the signs of corpus delicti;
- legal - this is a fallacy that relates to the legal consequences of an act.
Qualifications in a subject are most often applied in criminal law recently. But how to distinguish the line between legal and factual errors? What are their types?
Legal errors. Kinds
A mistake in a criminal prohibition is a wrong assessment by the subject of crime or inaccessibility of the committed act and the consequences that followed. As well as the type and amount of punishment that may be imposed for this act.
There are several types of errors:
- The erroneous representation of the subject about the crime of his deed. The alleged crime includes petty hooliganism, brewing moonshine, speculation, and currency transactions. All these acts do not entail criminal prosecution. The person believes that it does not do anything illegal, does no harm to society.
- Incorrect qualification by a person of an act committed by him as non-criminal. But it is worth remembering that ignorance of the laws does not exempt from liability.
- A person’s mistake in the legal qualification of his deed. Extortion, according to the injured person, is considered a robbery. And in this case, the guilty party is attracted for a crime that he did not personally commit.
- The misconception of a person about what type and amount of punishment does not affect responsibility in any way, and all because it is beyond the bounds of negligence and any intent.
As a result of this, a legal error in the criminal law of Russia does not change the qualification of the deed, and the type and amount of punishment imposed by the court in no way depends on it.
Actual error. What is it?
A factual error in criminal law is an erroneous idea of ​​a person about the objective signs of an offense committed by him. Most often, a sane person correctly assesses in his subconscious the objectively prevailing situation surrounding him, and where he acts. But sometimes a person has a misconception about what circumstances will follow what he did. In simple words, an individual made a mistake, and he incorrectly represents all the circumstances of the offense and incorrectly assesses the features of what was done and the conditions for committing the crime.
The concept and classification of legal errors
The concept of an error in the legislation of the Russian Federation should be defined as information that was received under the influence of a lost person about the legal or actual circumstances of the offense committed by him.
We have already figured out what a legal error is and what types of it currently exist in the legislation of the Russian Federation. But it is worth remembering that, if there is one, the general rule applies - the criminal liability of the person who committed the offense comes after it is correctly assessed not by the subject who committed it, but by the current legislation. Only a court can convict a person of a crime and give him the appropriate punishment.
A subjective mistake in criminal law is connected with the principle of imputation, and all because the content of guilt includes not only true, but also erroneous representations of the person about the nature of what he did and the significance of this for society. A mistake in criminal law means a person’s misconception regarding factual circumstances that make it possible to determine the nature and degree of danger to the public of the offense committed or the legal characteristics of the offense.
A legal error in the law is a wrong assessment by the guilty of the legal nature or consequences of the offense committed by him. In order to make it clear to everyone what exactly is a mistake from the legal side, it is necessary to analyze the following types of examples:
- Incorrect assessment of his act as a serious crime, while the law itself does not classify it as a criminal offense. So, for example, a person has committed some kind of misconduct and believes that he now faces criminal prosecution, but in fact his action does not relate to a crime, his actions can easily be justified by the law, and there will be no prosecution.
- Incorrect assessment of the committed act as unlawful. A person may believe that he did everything right, and no court is afraid of him, but if you carefully consider the case, it turns out that he violated someone else’s rights and that he simply won’t be able to avoid the court. Only a judge will be able to say for sure whether he is guilty or not, and will pronounce the appropriate sentence.
- The wrong opinion of the person who committed the offense regarding the qualification of his actions, the type and amount of punishment he could face in this case. These circumstances have nothing to do with the content of intent, they may not be considered a compulsory subject of consciousness, for this very reason an erroneous assessment does not affect the form of guilt and does not exclude criminal prosecution.
So, for example, a person who has committed violence against a minor is punished in accordance with the norm, which includes this attribute of qualification. Even if the object itself, by virtue of its ignorance, assumes that what he has done is punished within the limits of the norms established by law, where violence is described without any aggravating circumstances.
So, as for the general rule relating to the meaning of a legal error, it boils down to one thing - the criminal liability of a person who has committed an act and is mistaken regarding the legal qualifications and the consequences of what he has committed comes only with an assessment by the law of the Russian Federation. Simply put, such a mistake does not affect the guilt, qualification of the crime and the size of the punishment. That is why it is better to open the law of the Russian Federation and see what a crime committed by negligence or as a defense of yourself or your family could be threatened with.
The concept and classification of factual errors
There is such a thing in criminal law as a factual error. This term means the misinterpretation of circumstances that are objective signs of a criminal act.
Given the content of misconceptions, the following varieties of factual errors in criminal law are distinguished:
- Features of the nature of actions or their absence.
- The severity of the consequences.
- Error in the object of the attack.
- In circumstances of actions that only aggravate a person’s responsibility.
- Mistake in the development of causation.
In the legal literature there are also examples of other factual errors that are proposed to be distinguished into independent forms. These include: an error in the subject of a crime, in the means of carrying out a criminal offense and in methods.
But there is an opinion that highlighting the types of errors listed above does not make sense, because they can be attributed either to the object or to the objective side of the crime. Sometimes they do not play any role whatsoever in a criminal case.
There are no special rules in the criminal legislation of Russia, but the theory of law has developed questions to assess the impact of the actual error on the classification of the crime.
Of great importance for a case are only those errors in criminal law that are relevant only to the substantially significant signs of a crime.
Types of Actual Errors
Let us consider in more detail the varieties of errors and their essence.
- Misconception about the object. The accused does not fully realize to whom it is he who causes harm by his actions. It seems to him that one object, but in fact suffers a completely different one.
- A completely different matter is a mistake in the subject of a criminal act. The criminal does not have a complete picture of the subject that he decided to kidnap, for example. He sneaks into the apartment and takes out a picture, which, in his opinion, has a high price, but in fact, everything turns out to be wrong, and it is a fake. The punishment will be borne not only for theft, but also for an encroachment on a subject of special value.
- A criminal can also be mistaken in the personality of the victim, for example, to kill another person. In this case, a mistake was made that did not affect the qualification of the crime, the murder of any plan has its own article in criminal law.
- Misconceptions about the possible consequences of a crime. It affects the qualitative and quantitative features of the objective side.
- A mistake in criminal law may also apply to cause and effect relationships. For example, if the offender does not understand the explicit relationship between his criminal actions and danger to society.
- It is possible to use funds other than those previously planned to commit a crime . In this case, an error occurs in the funds.
- A mistake in circumstances that may aggravate or mitigate the punishment for a crime. Responsibility will be determined with intent. For example, if the criminal did not have an idea about the presence of these factors, then this will not affect the severity of the court decision, but in another case it will respond to the full extent of the law.
- There may also be an error in the time or place of the crime.
The above explanations only confirm the importance of studying this issue. Errors in criminal law - a problem that is important for the rule of law in the matter of qualification of crimes. Legal professionals are required to treat investigations more carefully. Subjective imputation should not be left behind.
If actual errors occur, it is important to analyze the focus of the intent for analysis.
The error may also apply to the objective parties to the crime. For example, if we consider the actions performed or their absence, then we can distinguish several types:
- In the criminal code, certain actions are considered a crime, and the person does not think so.
- The person who committed a certain act considers it dangerous, but in the criminal code it does not bear socially dangerous consequences. In such situations, the punishment will be for having intent to commit a crime.
The relevance of the problem of errors in modern jurisprudence
When committing any crime, there is always a person who is guilty of it and should be held accountable. The individual character makes it possible to determine what the attitude of the person himself to the perfect act and the consequences that it carries.
That is why objective and subjective errors in criminal law and their investigation play an important role in assessing the legal circumstances of a case.
The study of errors is the prerogative of not only criminal law, but also other industries, for example, sociological research, psychology, and philosophy. It is clear that it is impossible to completely insure oneself from mistakes in behavior and actions, but the fact is that only a small part of them becomes an object of study of Russian criminal law.
The Criminal Code, adopted in 1996, does not contain rules and regulations that would relate to legal errors. This is already a problem, especially in cases where there are several opinions regarding the committed act and the degree of responsibility. The result is often the wrong decision in terms of penalties for the offender.
Most law enforcement officials are of the opinion that the law must have norms regarding legal errors in criminal law.
The development of measures and standards is required, but in practice, even if they exist, difficulties will always arise in connection with the assessment of possible errors.
Conclusion
If there is a person’s fault, then the question always arises of the error and its effect on the degree of responsibility. Under the concept of error fall possible and existing errors of the person regarding the nature of the crime in terms of legal or factual matter.
Legal errors in criminal law will not affect the form of guilt and liability, but in some cases can serve as extenuating circumstances. If a person has a misconception about the essence of the act that he committed and its consequences for society, then there is a mistake that affects the decision made regarding liability.
If the factual errors are meant, then the criminal liability of the criminal person is determined taking into account his intent.
Analyzing the legal literature, we can conclude that there are many approaches to the classification of errors.Each in its own way reflects the phenomenon being studied and opens up its new sides and significance for criminal law. Classification allows us to solve not only theoretical issues, but also practical ones in jurisprudence.
Mistakes can be in any industry, but in the legal sphere quite often they cost an innocent person a lot. In the absence of socially dangerous consequences , serious penalties can be imposed, while misconduct resulting in damage to health and life are sometimes not considered dangerous. Therefore, this system requires serious reflection.