The concept and meaning of the object of the crime. Types of objects of crime

Criminal law is the most significant legal area of great social importance.
In close conjunction with other branches of law, such as criminal procedure, correctional labor, and criminal law, it performs a significant function that allows one to classify acts as crimes and determine the procedure for applying responsibility for committing criminal acts. The essence of the criminal law reflects the object of the crime, which is an element of any illegal act. Multi-channel free hotline Legal advice on criminal law. Every day from 9.00 to 21.00

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The concept of the object of a crime

The object of a crime is those social relations at which the attack is directed, to which harm is caused or may be caused as a result of the commission of a crime.
The object of the crime is the most important social values, interests, benefits protected by criminal law from criminal attacks. The General Part of the Criminal Law (Article 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) provides a generalized list of objects of criminal legal protection. These include:

human and civil rights and freedoms;
own;
public order and public safety;
environment;
constitutional system of the Russian Federation;
peace and security of mankind.

This generalized list is specified in the Special Part of the Criminal Law, primarily in the names of sections and chapters of the Criminal Code, since the Special Part of the Criminal Code is built on the basis of the generic object of the crime. It indicates the specific rights and freedoms of a person and citizen protected by criminal law (life, health, freedom, honor and dignity of the individual, sexual integrity and sexual freedom, constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, etc.), as well as the most important public and state interests that are harmed or significant harm may be caused as a result of criminal attacks (property, economic interests of society and the state, public health and public morality, state power and the interests of public service, interests of justice, management procedures, military service procedures, etc.).

The concept of the object of a crime is closely related to the essence and concept of a criminal act, its characteristics and, above all, the main material (social) characteristic of a crime - public danger. Only something that causes or can cause significant harm to any socially significant benefit or interest can be considered criminal, i.e. something that, from the point of view of society, is socially dangerous. If the act does not entail specific damage or does not pose a real threat of harm to any interest protected by criminal law, or this harm is clearly insignificant, such an act cannot be recognized as a crime. Thus, there is no crime without an object of attack.

Without the object of a crime, there is no corpus delicti. The four-member structure of the crime (object, subject, objective side, subjective side) requires, when qualifying an act, the primary establishment of the object of the attack - that to which significant harm has been caused or may be caused by this act. In the absence of a specific addressee of the attack in the form of a certain socially significant value protected by criminal law, we cannot talk about the composition of any crime.

The concept of the object of a crime is most closely connected with the most important feature of the objective side of a crime - socially dangerous consequences. Socially dangerous consequences are certain harm, damage caused or could be caused to any socially significant benefit or interest. Socially dangerous consequences, as it were, highlight and materialize (in the philosophical sense of the word) the essence and specificity of a specific object of encroachment.

Thus, the object of a crime is social relations protected by criminal law, socially significant values, interests, benefits, which are encroached upon by the person committing the crime, and to which, as a result of the commission of a criminal act, significant harm is caused or may be caused.

The meaning of the object of the crime in its main features boils down to the following:

The object of the crime is an element of each criminal act, i.e. any crime is such only when something (any socially significant value, interest, benefit, protected by criminal law) is caused or can be caused significant harm. This finds expression in such a legislatively enshrined sign of a crime as public danger.
The object of the crime is a mandatory element of the crime. There cannot be a single specific crime (murder, theft, high treason, etc.) without the direct object of the attack.
The object of the crime is of fundamental importance for the codification of criminal legislation. Based on the generic object of the crime, the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is built. Of course, this is the most logical and practically significant criterion for the classification and systematization of criminal law norms, the categorization of sections and chapters of the Criminal Code.
Correct identification of the object of the crime makes it possible to distinguish the crime from other offenses and immoral offenses. In addition, if the real or possible harm to any good is clearly insignificant, even protected by criminal law, we cannot talk about a crime (Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code - a minor act), since the object does not suffer the damage that is expected from crimes.
The object of the crime makes it possible to determine the nature and degree of social danger of the criminal act, i.e. exactly what socially significant benefit is protected by criminal law, and to what extent (how seriously) the harm has been caused or could have been caused.
The object of the crime is important, and sometimes decisive, for the correct qualification of the act and the delimitation of one crime from another.

Types of crime objects

Russian criminal law distinguishes between types of crime objects, relatively speaking, “vertically” and “horizontally”. The first classification traditionally distinguishes general, generic (sometimes called special) and direct objects of crime. They relate to each other like the philosophical categories “general”, “special” and “individual” (“separate”).

Types of crime objects “vertically”

The common object is the object of each and every crime. This is the totality of all socially significant values, interests, benefits protected by criminal law from criminal attacks. The general object of the crime, as noted, is presented in a generalized form in Art. 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - human and civil rights and freedoms, property, public order and public safety, environment, constitutional system of the Russian Federation, peace and security of mankind. The common object is a whole, some part of which is encroached upon by each crime. The general object of the crime gives a holistic picture of those benefits, interests, values that modern society and the state consider so socially significant that they provide for criminal liability in the event of causing or the possibility of causing significant harm to them.

A generic object of a crime is an object of a group of homogeneous crimes, part of a common object. This is this or that area, the sphere of socially significant values, interests, benefits. An idea of the generic objects of crimes is given by the division of the Special Part of the Criminal Code into sections and chapters, since it is the generic object of the crime that forms the basis for the codification and classification of the norms of the Special Part. This primarily determines its fundamental significance. The generic objects of crimes include, for example, personality, property, public safety, management order, the interests of justice, the interests and order of military service, etc. The generic object of the crime is also important for the qualification of crimes - it allows you to determine which particular group, sphere of homogeneous interests damage has been caused or may be caused as a result of the commission of a criminal act (for example, an explosion may be accompanied by sabotage, terrorism, murder in a generally dangerous way, and even robbery. It is necessary to determine what essentially, what area of social interests is aimed at encroachment).

A species object can be designated as a subgroup of close, similar social benefits, included in a broader group of homogeneous, same-order values. A specific object is an object of a type (subgroup) of crimes that are very similar in nature. Thus, if the generic object of a large group of crimes is the individual (Section VII of the Special Part of the Criminal Code), then the specific objects can be considered life and health (Chapter 16), freedom, honor and dignity of the individual (Chapter 17), sexual integrity and sexual freedom of the individual (Chapter 18), etc. Thus, a specific object is an additional link in the vertical structure of crime objects. In some cases, it may be absent, coinciding with the generic one (in particular, when the section of the Special Part consists of only one chapter, for example, Section XI and Chapter 33 - crimes against military service).

The direct object of a crime is the object of a separate specific crime, part of a generic object. The direct object is a mandatory feature of each crime. This is any specific benefit that is directly targeted by the encroachment. So, in crimes against the person the direct objects. may be life (for example, when committing a murder), health (for example, when causing varying degrees of severity of harm to health), personal freedom (for example, when kidnapping a person), honor and dignity of the individual (for example, when insulting), etc. The direct object of the crime has important practical significance for qualifying the act.

Types of crime objects “horizontally”

There are also varieties of crime objects “horizontally”. This refers mainly to the immediate object. There are crimes that simultaneously encroach on two immediate objects - the so-called dual-object crimes (for example, during robbery, an attack is carried out simultaneously on both property and person). In such cases, a distinction is usually made between:

the main, or main, object of the crime;
additional object of the crime (mandatory or optional).

This distinction is made not according to the degree of significance of the object, but according to its connection with the generic object of crimes of this group. So, in the above example, robbery is a crime against property, this determines its location in the system of the Special Part of the Criminal Code (Chapter 21, Section VIII), and therefore property will be the main object here, and the person (life or health) will be an additional one.

An additional object can be either necessary (mandatory) or optional. In the same composition of robbery, life or health is always a necessary additional object of the crime, since without an attack on the person there can be no robbery. However, there are cases when an additional object of the crime is specified in the law in an alternative form. For example, when water is polluted (Article 250 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), significant harm can be caused, in addition to the water sources themselves, to flora and fauna, fish stocks, forestry or agriculture. Each of these additional objects of the crime is optional, since in a specific case of commission of a given crime, damage can only be caused to one of the above.

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Systematization "horizontally"

In addition to the above, there is another classification - “horizontally”. In essence, it represents a division into types of the direct object of the crime.

The division into basic and additional was first proposed by D. N. Rosenberg. He was guided by the idea that any criminal action (inaction) causes harm or creates the threat of its occurrence in the sphere of not one, but several social relations. Therefore, when qualifying it, it is necessary to highlight what in this particular case seems to be basic. The rest are additional and optional types of elements of the crime.