Significantly about the Insignificant: Practice of Applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Introduction: it is known that “significant” and “insignificant” are paired categories, because revealing the essence of the one is unthinkable without referring to the analysis of the other. This article (the first in a series) reveals the social and legal nature of the institution of insignificance in criminal law. Purpose: to clarify the legal nature and essence of the institution of insignificance in criminal law and analyze the practice of applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and develop scientific and practical recommendations for law enforcement officers. Methods: historical, comparative legal, sociological and psychological, statistical methods, methods of dialectical cognition, abstraction, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction. Results: first, it is stated that the category “insignificance of a criminal act” has not been properly developed in Russian criminal law science. Second, it is revealed that the intensification of the practice of applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is associated with the emergence and further with the deepening of the gap in the norms of substantive law regulating the incurrence of liability for petty theft (Article of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation) and various forms of theft provided for in Chapter 21 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Crimes against property”. Third, it is stated that law enforcement officers (employees of bodies engaged in operational investigative activities, interrogators, investigators, prosecutors and judges) cannot comprehend the essence of another paired philosophical and legal category – “form” and “comprehension” (crisis of legal psychology and ideology). All the noted problems do not contribute both to the economy of criminal repression and criminal procedural economy in general. Fourth, there is a growing number of legal experts arguing that the problem of the insignificance of an act should be brought up for discussion by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. In subsequent articles in the series “Significantly about the Insignificant: Practice of Applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation”, the reader will be offered a substantive analysis of the rational and irrational in classifying certain actions as criminally punishable acts and results of the author’s monitoring of the practice of applying Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.