Lawyer: If your husband beats you, how can you bring him to justice?

Perhaps one of the most unpleasant situations is when a husband raises his hand against his wife, because such situations do not lead to good and you need to act so that such situations do not recur, there is no need to remain silent and hope that in your situation everything will change by itself, it will form, your husband will come to his senses, no and no, do not give in to these internal persuasion, because it may already be too late. Of course, you should know how to defend yourself legally in this situation, and the article was written to help women who are beaten by their husbands.

What responsibility does a husband face if he raises his hand against his wife?

Everything will depend on the severity of the beating, but in any case, this is the first thing you should know and the degree of responsibility will be higher depending on the severity of the harm caused by the beating, because harm to health can be mild, moderate and severe.

Responsibility for beatings arises according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and it is as follows:

If the beating is not severe and minor harm to health is caused , which is determined by a forensic medical examination, because minor harm to health is a short-term health disorder, general ability to work is slightly lost, in general it can be bruises, abrasions, contusions and other damage that was not caused serious harm to health, there is a bruise and it passed without consequences. In this case, you can be held accountable for such an act under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As such, liability for this act is a fine of up to 40,000 rubles, or compulsory labor for up to 480 hours, or corrective labor for up to 1 year, or arrest for up to 4 months. In general, there is no smell of punishment here as such, well, at least of course it’s up to you to judge, but still, I think you can influence your spouse here by arrest, a fine is always a blow to the family budget, and 40,000 I’ll tell you this is not a small amount for a family and a fine here the problem cannot be solved, it will only put the family in an even worse situation, but correctional labor or compulsory labor also disciplines;
But here, too, if harm to health was caused intentionally , then the perpetrator can be prosecuted under Articles 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for causing grievous harm to health and 112 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for causing harm to health of moderate severity;
Have you received death threats? In this case, the act is qualified under Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the punishment can be up to 480 hours of compulsory labor, or restriction of freedom for up to 2 years, or forced labor for up to 2 years, or arrest for up to 6 months, or imprisonment for up to 6 months. 2 years;
If a husband beats systematically , then this is classified as repeated beatings or repeated violent acts over a certain period of time, and such acts are classified under Article 117 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, this is torture. But this can be considered torture if short periods of time pass between incidents, for example 2-3 days or a week;
Now I want to talk about beatings , and here everything is not as simple as it might seem, because there may be no traces of beatings, especially since delivering a single blow cannot be qualified as beatings. For beatings, the inflictor of harm is held accountable under Article 116 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Batterings do not always leave marks, but beatings can appear on the victim’s body as scratches, abrasions, hematomas, and bruises. To record visible or invisible damage, you need to consult a doctor or medical expert, because only a person with knowledge in the field of medicine can clearly determine the mechanism of formation of damage, their location, determine the time of their occurrence, signs characteristic of a specific type of damage, and also characterize the object or the manner in which the damage was caused. If there are no visible traces of beatings, then the fact of the presence of beatings is characterized by the complaints of the victim, because it is the complaints that are reflected in the medical examination, and the reaction to palpation of the areas of the body where the beatings were carried out is also described. Also included under beating are such actions as wringing (twisting) hands, pulling out hair, hitting the face with palms, choking techniques and other impacts causing physical suffering.

Algorithm for contacting law enforcement officers

If you become a victim of assault, you should seek help and protection from law enforcement agencies as soon as possible. This must be done at the place of permanent/temporary or actual residence.

If, due to poor health, the injured party is not able to come to the duty station, then initially you should go to a medical facility to receive first aid. Upon receipt of the application, the institution’s employees will record the identified injuries, and then issue the appropriate certificate to the patient who contacted them.

If the injured party is able to independently come to the police station, then upon receipt of the request, she will be given a referral to undergo a medical examination.

If, as a result of the beatings, the victim is hospitalized, the workers of the medical institution, based on the existing medical regulations, will independently report the incident to law enforcement officers. Upon notification, a police officer will visit the specified medical institution, giving the victim the opportunity to report the incident orally.

Removing beatings or an action plan after being beaten by your husband

Here there will be recommendations for several different situations at once, because beatings can be different, but in general, each recommendation has been time-tested; by acting in a way that is convenient for you, you will not make mistakes and will do everything correctly.

If you have received serious injuries, such as broken limbs, concussions and other serious injuries, then we immediately call an ambulance, because it is the medical workers who will record your injuries, and at the ambulance station (“hospital”), when calling the team, a record is made in journal about the date and time of the team’s departure. With such serious injuries, the victim will be taken to the hospital and treated. In such a situation, the beatings will be removed by medical workers, and in such cases, medical workers will also report to the police that a patient has been admitted to the department with beatings, after which a local police officer or another police officer will come to you, he will take an explanation from you and ask you about it , what happened, you can apply here.

If after the beating you do not need emergency medical care, then you can immediately go and write a statement to the police department and after filing the statement, the police officers will have to send you for an examination (as part of the pre-investigation check), where the beatings will be removed. But in order to carry out an examination and remove the beatings, it may not be at the direction of the police; you can independently contact a medical institution to remove the beatings.

There is also the option of going to the emergency room, where you can have the beatings removed, and there is usually a policeman on duty there, to whom you can explain the situation and file a report. After an examination by a traumatologist, or a surgeon or other medical workers, you are required to be given diagnostic documents; they are necessary for conducting a forensic medical examination, because it includes an examination and, as a result, the issuance of an opinion on the state of health and the severity of the beatings.

And so we came to the conclusion that you can go in several ways:

Call an ambulance;
Go to the police station yourself;
Go to a medical facility (emergency room) yourself.

If you go to a medical facility or emergency room!

Of course, in a medical institution you will be provided with the first necessary aid, but most importantly, you will receive a certificate indicating what kind of beatings you have on your body, their nature will also be indicated, and the date and time of your application will also be indicated in the certificate.

After which you can go to the police station with the certificate. We write a statement in which we indicate all the circumstances of the incident, and after filing it, the person causing harm will be held accountable and the issue of punishment will be decided along the way.

As I said above, when you come with a certificate to file a statement with the police, you may be sent for a forensic examination to conduct a pre-investigation check. But this does not mean that you will be examined again; in most cases, experts make an opinion based on the certificate that you received upon your initial visit to a medical institution.

You can contact the police immediately!

Here, of course, you will need to write a statement in which you indicate under what circumstances the beatings were inflicted, how they were inflicted (in what ways), and generally describe the sequence of actions of the harm-doer.

Next, you will be sent to undergo a forensic medical examination, and here you will come without a certificate and the expert will examine your beatings, after which a conclusion will be made on the severity of the harm caused to your health.

It is very important for you to record all injuries in a timely manner and the first thing you can do after receiving a beating is to record their presence on a photo or video camera, and we always recommend reporting the fact of beatings to your relatives, friends or acquaintances, and be sure to tell them, what happened.

You will need to prove that your husband caused the injuries to you.

Here you have the following types of evidence:
Testimony;
Real.

Of course, the conclusion of a forensic expert and the medical examination report after the beating play a very important role, but you need to prove that it was the husband who inflicted the beating. Of course, the law obliges the collection of evidence to be carried out by the investigator, inquiry officer and prosecutor, but no one deprives the injured party of engaging in independent collection of evidence and such evidence is necessarily attached to the case and the evidence can be any type of information related to the case on the basis of Part 1 of Article 74 Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation.

Material evidence may include recordings from video cameras, cameras, recordings from a voice recorder, because you can turn on a video or audio recording on your phone during a quarrel and record the beating process itself if you quietly install or carelessly throw the phone to some place for review, in fact, how it will work, but the very fact of the presence of at least an audio track will be good evidence.

You can use as evidence the objects with which you were struck, and such objects can also be sent for examination in order to establish on them the presence of traces of blood, remains of skin, hair and other biological materials belonging to the victim.

You also have every right to involve witnesses to participate in the case, but these must be real witnesses, that is, persons who were nearby or in the immediate vicinity at the time of your beating and heard everything. These could be neighbors, as a rule they are neighbors, or if everything happened on the street, then random passers-by.

After the police officers conduct an investigation, the case is sent to court and the judge will decide what punishment to impose.

How to record beatings of your husband if you are getting divorced

Beatings during divorce proceedings are, unfortunately, not uncommon. Even in cases where the husband himself initiated the divorce. Problems at work or in his personal life can lead to him taking out his anger on a woman who is practically not his wife. And this is where things get complicated. Law enforcement agencies have internal instructions according to which they should not interfere in the divorce process until it is completed. Such are the conflicts in Russian legislation.

How to remove the beatings in this case? No way! It's best not to let this happen. Just leave, hide during the divorce process. Come only to court hearings. Better yet, send your representative there. After all, anything can happen. As practice shows, people are not only beaten, but also blackmailed and even kidnapped.

But when you are already divorced, but still live in the same apartment, you are already complete strangers to each other. And here, in the case of bodily harm or incitement to suicide, criminal liability arises.

Degree of severity of harm caused to health

According to the law, there are three degrees of severity of damage to health:

Easy degree. It includes a short-term health disorder (if the recovery period is no more than 21 days or a minor loss of general ability to work is less than 10%). This degree of ill health includes ailments such as bruises, abrasions, hematomas, bruises, etc. (that is, injuries that do not harm human health).
Average degree. The injuries do not pose a threat to the life of the victim, but recovery of health takes a longer period - more than 21 days, and loss of ability to work ranges from 10 to 30%. This includes fractures, concussions, and knife cuts.
Severe damage. Indicates a direct threat to human life. And also such a degree is observed, if the consequences of the injuries are life-threatening to the victim, there is a significant loss of ability to work (over 120 days). Examples: spinal fracture, intracranial injury, rupture of large blood vessels, coma, rupture of internal organs, loss of the ability to hear or see, irreparable disfigurement of the face, loss of the ability to speak and express thoughts clearly, to be understood by others.

Participants in legal proceedings need to know:

The severity of an injury can be determined based on one medical sign.
Medical assistance provided by the culprit that prevented death will not be taken into account. expert in assessing the severity of the damage caused.
When many different injuries occur, the severity is determined specifically for each injury.
If damages have different statutes of limitations, each of them is assessed separately.
If the inflicted injuries aggravate each other, the degree of their severity is determined by the totality of the injuries received.

In the full version of the order you can find a detailed list of all criteria and comprehensive information on damage assessment.

Prevention of domestic violence in Russia

Beating a wife by her husband is a common article. In modern Russian society, the main problem in addressing the issue of “kitchen wars” is the lack of preventive measures to prevent domestic violence.

The only federal law that is aimed at improving the crime situation in the country is Federal Law No. 182 of June 23, 2016 “On the fundamentals of the crime prevention system in the Russian Federation.” It is difficult to talk about its effectiveness given the statistics on beatings and other types of domestic violence.

To change the situation radically, a number of measures are needed that will combat the problem specifically in relation to domestic fanatics:

It is necessary to create a federal law on the prevention of domestic violence.
Increasing the number of hotlines and socially responsible organizations that are ready to provide assistance to victims.
Explanatory work on education and development.
Formation of public opinion against domestic violence.
Increased attention to social segments of the population that are at risk.

First of all, what is needed is a prepared federal bill that would define the legal and organizational foundations of social and legal protection, as well as the powers of public authorities, and the range of preventive measures to combat violence.

Several attempts have already been made in Russia to develop federal bills. For example, in the draft federal law presented on September 28, 2016 by State Duma deputy S.Sh. Murzabaeva. and member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation A.V. Belyakov, proposed for discussion measures to solve the problem of domestic violence, based on the experience of advanced countries.

Here are some specific proposals received from the developers of the Federal Law:

The need to deliver the victim to a safe place, or transfer him into the care of a public service.
Creation of documents protecting the injured party.
Development of programs in the field of violations at the state level.
Providing free legal support.
Forecasting.
Attracting and training police officers.
Maintaining accurate statistics and recording the number of cases of violence.
Training, i.e. professional training, for school staff on issues of prevention of violations.

Such measures would make it possible to prevent a significant number of crimes committed at home.

Thanks to this law, police officers are ready to inform a woman about her rights; the victim has the right to obtain a protective order, which orders the perpetrator not to approach the victim at a distance established by the court. Special shelters have been organized for victims of domestic violence.

Canada is the undisputed leader in the fight against domestic violence and protection of women's rights. Already in the 70s of the last century, active educational work on issues of family violence began: a special newsletter was distributed, about 50 films were made, and special training programs were introduced for schoolchildren and students.

Canada was also able to collect comprehensive statistics on the number of cases of domestic violence, sufficient to conduct serious sociological and gender studies. In many ways, the answer to the question of the origin of domestic violence was the historically established “subordinate” role of women in society; domestic violence is just one of the ways to assert the dominant role of men, therefore the fight for equality is one of the key campaigns that radically changes the situation that has developed over centuries and takes society to a new level.

But in Turkey, where the way of life is not changing at such a rapid pace (although this country expects to reach the European level in addressing many key issues), the situation is sad: about 36% of women are victims of domestic violence. The obstacle to solving this problem is, first of all, ineffective legislation, which only helps married women, while allowing husbands to get off with a fine. The tradition of forcibly marrying off young girls plays a huge negative role.

Drawing up an application

Despite the absence of a legally established form for a statement to the police about beatings, when drawing it up, you should adhere to certain features of the form and content. So, when composing an appeal yourself, you should make sure that it contains the following information and sections:

A cap. It indicates: the full name of the authority of appeal (in this case, details of the police department), details of the official in whose name it is drawn up (last name, first name, patronymic, position held), details of the applicant (last name, first name, patronymic, residential address, contact information);
Next, in the middle, the name of the document is indicated, namely, “Statement of beatings”;
The main part, which sets out the reason for filing the application. The circumstances and details of what happened are described in chronological order, the exact dates, times, addresses where everything happened, information about the participants, the presence/absence of witnesses, etc. are indicated. Particular attention should be paid to describing the consequences that occurred as a result of the beating;
Requirements. Here, referring to the appropriate articles of Administrative or Criminal legislation (presented in the previous sections), the essence of the petition should be stated in relation to the body to which the application is submitted (police);
List of documentation. Here, in list format, you should indicate all the materials available to the applicant that prove the legitimacy of the charges brought;
At the very end, you should indicate the date the application was drawn up, and then add a signature and a transcript to it.