Criminal liability as a means of counteracting sanitary and epidemiological rule violations in a pandemic

Transbaikal State University, Department of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, Institute of Law, Chita, Russia

¹ Corresponding author: Jus-chita@yandex.ru

Abstract

The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the issues of the application of criminal liability as a means of countering violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules in a pandemic. The main idea of the study: the validity and expediency of amending the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation establishing punishment for violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules and criminalization of the spread of an infectious disease. A methodological toolkit is a set of methods, means and techniques with the help of which the criminalization of violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules in a pandemic is substantiated. The following methods were used in the work: hypothetical-deductive; dogmatic (formal legal analysis); description; comparative. The result of the work is the provision that in a pandemic, a necessary condition for ensuring national security seems appropriate to criminalize the spread of infectious diseases that pose a danger to others, which will make it possible to prosecute people who, deliberately or through negligence, have committed infecting a disease included in the category of dangerous to others. These recommendations are due to the noted problems in science and practice, including the results of comparative legal analysis. The novelty of the research lies in the substantiation of amending the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation by federal law. The amendments introduce stricter types of punishments, establish responsibility for the threat of a mass disease or people intoxication, and additions have been made in the form of a third part which provides for liability for violation of sanitary standards that inadvertently entailed the death of two or more people. The peculiarities of bringing to criminal responsibility for similar acts in certain foreign countries are also considered. There is a tendency to classify such crimes as terrorism-related.