Article 118 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation takes into account sanctions for persons who have harmed other people. In order to qualify the acts under this article, the damage caused must be serious, as well as committed by negligence.
What is harm?
Damage to the human body involves bodily harm. These injuries can be expressed in violation of the human anatomy, that is, the integrity of tissues and bones, as well as any functions of the body. In addition, the emergence of any diseases, pathological conditions can be attributed to harm.
So, for example, a man who, without intent, infected a woman with a venereal disease, will be considered to have harmed the latter. Qualification of this act may not be done according to Art. 118 of the Criminal Code, and according to another norm of the Criminal Code, depending on the nature and degree of harm, as well as other circumstances of the case. But this example is necessary to understand how health can be harmed.
Examination of the damage
Establishment of the severity level of harm to the human body is fully vested in the forensic medical examination.
Injuries related to the grave degree of harm are usually attributed to such injuries that immediately at the time of their infliction by the offender create a real danger to the victim, expressed in possible death.
Physical injuries are also distinguished, which pose a threat to the life of the injured person in their consequences. One of them is the deprivation of vision, speech, hearing. In addition, severe damage to health can also be expressed in the loss of organs (for example, arms, legs, ear or other part of the body). In such cases, it is believed that the victim’s body has lost its functions and cannot work as before.
Corpus delicti
Like all other crimes specified in the Russian Criminal Code, the structure of grievous bodily harm due to negligence consists of four signs. This is the subjective and objective side, the subject and, of course, the object.
The health of the victim appears in this type of criminal act as an immediate object.
The subject of crime can only be a physical person, a sane person, whose age is not less than fourteen years.
The objective side of the act established by Art. 118 of the Criminal Code, comments call the following. This side means the acts of the accused (suspect, convicted), which he committed and having a causal relationship with the inflicted grievous harm. It should be noted that these acts can be expressed not only in the active actions of the offender, but also in his inaction. An example here is the situation when the offender did not give the appropriate order to his dog, as a result of which severe injuries were inflicted on the victim.
Unlike the previous signs of corpus delicti established by Art. 118 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which are almost identical to a crime committed with direct intent (inflicting grievous bodily harm), the subjective side of the criminal act under consideration is completely different. It consists not in the direct intent of the offender, but in the commission of a criminal act by negligence, that is, by arrogance or negligence.
Negligence and arrogance
Negligence in criminal law can be expressed in two forms. This is negligence and arrogance. The negligence of the offender lies in the fact that, when he performs his actions, he does not foresee the onset of the criminal result, but he was obliged and able to foresee it. Typically, such an obligation to anticipate the consequences is imposed on the person by laws or official duties. For example, the bus driver went on a flight without checking the technical condition of the units, as a result of which the vehicle got into an accident. Here the driver did not know and did not want the accident to happen, but if he performed his duties, checked the condition of the transport, then the accident would not have happened.
Frivolity or arrogance is expressed in anticipation of a criminal result. At the same time, the criminal believes that he can prevent such a result through his skills or abilities. He can also expect that dangerous consequences will not occur due to the actions of third parties or other factors. For example, a bus driver went on a flight with a faulty brake system, hoping that nothing would happen, thanks to his long experience and ability to drive vehicles. But the accident still happened. There is criminal arrogance.
Punishment
Sanction Art. 118 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation presumes the maximum penalty in the first part in the form of arrest for up to six months. If the crime is committed by a person who improperly performed his direct duties, then the qualification of the crime will be made already in the second part. The maximum sentence in the second part involves imprisonment for up to 1 year.