Rules for qualification of crimes, which are established in the criminal law (for example, comparative analysis between the criminal code of the Republic of Lithuania and the criminal code of the Republic of Belarus

Abstract

On the basis of the comparative analysis of rules of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania and the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus the content of the rules of qualification of crime, stipulated by these criminal laws, is revealed in the article. The author analyses the peculiarities of legal approaches of two countries to the rules of qualification of crime committed by the citizen of the corresponding country outside this country. The differences in exceptions to the rule of “double criminality” is revealed. Critically examining in this regard the provisions of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania and the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, the author proposes to formulate in the criminal law the exception to the rule of double criminality on the basis of the following criteria: a) the act is considered as a crime under the criminal legislation of the country of which the person who committed it is a citizen; b) the act is not considered as a crime under the criminal legislation of the country on whose territory it was committed; c) the committed crime belongs to the category of grave or especially grave crime; d) this crime is against the interests of the country of which the person is a citizen.

Special attention in the article is paid to the analysis and comparison of the rules of qualification of complicity in a crime: qualification of acts of an organizer, an instigator and an accomplice of crime in complicity with distribution of roles, criminal law assessment of failed complicity, qualification of crime in the presence of circumstances that eliminate, mitigate or aggravate the criminal responsibility of one of the accessories, qualification of participators in an organized group or in a criminal organization (a criminal association). The author indicates the merits and problems of the comparable criminal law rules. In relation to some rules of qualification of crime the author’s position regarding the optimal approaches to the formulation of the corresponding rules is expressed.

On the basis of the rules of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus the rules of qualification of crime, that are not fixed in the text of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania in force, are described in the article. Besides the author reveals the merits of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania such as exclusion of “repeatability” and “administrative prejudice”, considers this experience to be beneficial for the Belarusian legislator.