Murder at the victim’s request: ethical and legal issues of euthanasia

One of the urgent tasks of modern criminal law is the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms. At the same time, in national criminal law there is no unified concept of criminal liability for crimes against life committed under mitigating circumstances. The privileged corpus delicti available in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation do not cover all situations requiring the mitigation of criminal liability. The expansion of the list of privileged murders will serve the principles of justice and humanism, as it will allow the imposition of penalties commensurate with the nature and degree of danger to society, the circumstances of the crime and the perpetrator’s identity. The article is devoted to the study of the criminal law aspects of euthanasia as a type of murder committed under mitigating circumstances.