On the need to criminalize the use of information and telecommunication networks (including the internet) when committing a crime under art. 127.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Introduction: the authors discuss challenges in selective criminalization of the use of public telecommunications networks including Internet in trafficking-related crimes provided for Article 1271 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Materials and Methods: as the main method, the authors used the method of dialectical cognition of legal and social reality. The authors also used universal and specific research methods: analysis, induction, deduction, description, generalization, statistical, comparative and legal, sociological. Cases of Association for Electronic Communications, the statistics for Main Informational and Analytical Center of MIA of Russia, verdicts of courts of general jurisdiction of Russia as well as results of the public opinion poll conducted by the authors were the empirical basis for the study. Results: the authors justify that nowadays public telecommunications networks have often been the tool of committing acts under Article 1271 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Human trafficking). At the same time their usage both cannot be counted as the definition of the offences and in the imposition of the punishment provided for their commission. The first has to do with the fact that repeatedly tested design feature “committing an offence using information and telecommunications networks including the Internet” is non-constructive in Article 1271, Part 1 and is also not enshrined as a qualifying and especially qualifying offense in Parts 2, 3 of the given Article. The second is justified by the absence of the considered construction in the list of circumstances aggravating punishment (Article 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), despite the fact that such proposals have repeatedly been the subject of scientific discussion. Discussion and Conclusions: the authors come to the conclusion that there is a need to criminalize the use of public telecommunications networks when buying and selling and doing other actions towards humans through the including “with the use of public telecommunications networks (including Internet)” as Article 1271, Part 2, paragraph “k”.