Definition, regulation and significance of the institute of the error in the criminal law of Russia

The institution of the error occupies an essential place in the science of criminal law. The error in criminal law is considered to be the misconception of the subject who committed the crime about the actual legal and factual circumstances of the deed. Depending on the nature of the person’s delusion, two types of errors are distinguished - legal and factual errors. A legal error implies an incorrect assessment by a person of the legal content or legal consequences of the act committed. A factual error is understood as an incorrect assessment by the subject of the objective circumstances of the committed act, which are important for the qualification of the act. Legal and factual errors have their own classification. In particular, they highlight errors in the subject of the crime, errors in the content of the act being committed, errors in the development of a causal relationship, etc. The purpose of this article is to review the definition of the concept and to analyze the significance of the institution of the error in the criminal law. The methodological basis of the research is the dialectical method of cognition. In this article were used various methods of scientific research: comparative legal, logical-historical, sociological, systemic, etc. Authors of this article considered the definition of the institution of the error in criminal law, analyzed their classification, provided specific examples of errors confirmed by the norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.