Correlation of the Concepts of "Crime" and "Corpus Delicti": Theoretical and Practical Significance
9 Pages Posted: 25 May 2022
Date Written: April 12, 2022
Abstract
The corpus delicti is a certain speculative model necessary to streamline the process of legal assessment of a criminal act. The concept of corpus delicti is not contained in criminal legislation, and Article 8 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation establishes a provision according to which "the basis of criminal liability is the commission of an act containing all the signs of the corpus delicti provided for by this Code". The concept and features of the corpus delicti are developed by the theory of criminal law.
The concept of corpus delicti contributes to the attribution of specific acts to the category of crimes, since the corpus delicti is a set of features established by criminal law that define a socially dangerous act as a crime. The corpus delicti is a legislative judgment on the public danger of specific acts. The composition of the crime, as a reflection of the offender's act, is a set of signs that represent what is usually shown by the content of the concept of "corpus delicti". Professor A.N. Trainin understood the composition of the crime as "the totality of all objective and subjective signs that...define a specific socially dangerous action (inaction) as a crime". But reducing the role of the composition exclusively to the role that characterizes the social danger of the act "narrows" its meaning.
Keywords: criminal law, Criminal Code, criminal process, law regulation
JEL Classification: K-1, K-14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation