Holding the highest position in the criminal hierarchy: criminal law aspect

The paper discusses the most pressing issues of criminal responsibility for holding the highest position in the criminal hierarchy. Liability for such an act was introduced by Federal Law No. 46-FZ of April 1, 2019 by supplementing the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with Article 210¹. In order to characterize the constituent elements of this crime, the legislator used the concepts of «criminal hierarchy» and «the highest position in the criminal hierarchy» that are not defined in the current normative legal acts, which makes it difficult to apply the considered criminal law norm. Some scientific publications note that the introduction of criminal liability for a person occupying the highest position in the criminal hierarchy is not in agreement with Article 8 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which, as the sole basis of responsibility, specifies a socially dangerous act containing all the elements of a crime and not the status of a person in the criminal world. Purpose: based on modern scientific concepts and judicial practice, a comparative study of national legislation with similar legal provisions of other states, to interpret the concepts in question and, on that basis, to define the range of socially dangerous acts, which may be incriminated against a person prosecuted under Article 210¹ of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Methods: methods of analysis and synthesis, generalization, comparative legal, formal logical, legal dogmatic and other methods of scientific knowledge are used. Results: on the basis of the study, the author concludes that not the status of a criminal leader itself, but the administrative activity due to the highest position in the criminal environment to streamline organized crime in freedom and in places of execution of punishments constitutes grounds for responsibility under Article 210¹ of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. There is also an indicative list of persons to be considered as perpetrators of offences under Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210¹ of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.