Criminal law challenges in qualifying torture (article 117 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)

The authors consider criminal characteristics of both objective and subjective elements of Article 117 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, analyze qualifying elements of the crime. Basing of the analysis of legal theory and application practice of the Article the authors reveal the essence of the concepts “mental suffering” and “physical suffering”, substantiate the expediency of changing the disposition of the Article in terms of specifying the manner in which the crime was committed, identify qualification difficulties in law enforcement, and suggest ways to eliminate them.