Socially dangerous acts have always been, are and will be the most extreme frontier of human cruelty. Such actions of an individual not only break down all the foundations in society over the past decades, but also cross out any moral principles. In the spiritual sense, socially dangerous acts or crimes, as they are called, affect the victims and the persons who commit them quite strongly.
In order to ensure punishment for criminal activity, a criminal branch of law was created. Today it is the most dynamic in terms of deriving all kinds of theories, concepts and studying violations of the law from the point of view of law. In the process of developing fundamental scientific knowledge, people have learned to distinguish crimes depending on those constituent elements that are present in any socially dangerous act. In this case, we are talking about the corpus delicti as the main condition for its existence. Few people know that the compositions differ from each other. Their specific types, namely, material and formal, will be discussed later in the article.
What is a crime?
Corpus delicti Is a criminal law category. It is presented in the form of a combination of objective and subjective signs that determine the essence of a socially dangerous act. The mentioned features are enshrined in the industry normative act - the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As a rule, they exist in various rules of law of the Special and General parts of the code. Conventionally, all the signs can be divided depending on their belonging to a particular element of a socially dangerous act, namely: signs of the subject, object, subjective and objective side.
Significance of crime
When absolutely all signs of a crime (composition) are revealed in a perfect act, then it can be recognized as socially dangerous. In addition, the presence of a composition is a direct reason for bringing a person who has committed a crime to criminal liability.
In this case, it is thanks to the composition that one of the many socially dangerous acts presented in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will be identified. It should be noted that in the absence of at least one of the elements of the composition, the act cannot be recognized as a crime.
Crime story
It should be noted that the formal and material corpus delicti, or rather the theory of their existence, arose relatively recently. The very same the concept of “crime” has a long history. The first mention of this legal category dates back to the late XIX - early XX century. But the corpus delicti of that time was significantly different from its current interpretation. For example, the very evidence of the crime committed (corpse, signs of penetration, if theft occurred, etc.) was considered to be a composition.
In fact, the composition of a socially dangerous act in this form was a procedural category. Later, the term migrated to criminal law, where it acquired a doctrinal form. In many states, the composition has a completely different look. In the countries of the Anglo-Saxon legal family, there is generally no such category as the composition of a socially dangerous act. As for the Russian Federation, the existence of such a structure of signs of a socially dangerous act is not fixed at the legislative level. They, so to speak, come from criminal law, if they are analyzed in detail.
Elements of corpus delicti
In order to differentiate the formal and material corpus delicti, it is necessary to know the elements of the presented legal category. To date, the following elements of the composition are distinguished in the criminal law of the Russian Federation, namely:
- The object of crime. In fact, these are the legal relations that a person committing a socially dangerous act encroaches on. In some cases, an additional sign may be the subject of a crime. Unlike the object, no encroachment takes place on the subject; it actually exists.
- The objective side is characterized by the presence of a socially dangerous act and a causal relationship between it and the consequences. You can also highlight optional features, such as time, place, circumstances, etc.
- The subject of the crime must meet certain criteria. First of all, it should be a sane individual over the age of 16 years.
- The subjective side is the fault. As a rule, this criterion is manifested in intent or recklessness.
Thus, based on the presented criteria and their optional aspects, it is quite possible to distinguish several types of corpus delicti.
Material, formal and truncated corpus delicti: differentiation criteria
Thanks to the allocation of the presented structures in the practical use of criminal law, it is possible to determine several actual circumstances of a particular life event. In other words, thanks to these compositions, socially dangerous acts are differentiated depending on their prototype in reality, and not on the pages of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The formal, material and truncated corpus delicti makes it possible to determine the moment the crime ends, as well as the presence of socially dangerous consequences and their importance. But here you need to carefully approach the interpretation of each individual case, because the formal composition of the crime is significantly different from the material.
Features of the material corpus delicti
It should be noted that the material composition is distinguished on the basis of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of the objective side of a socially dangerous act. Thus, it will be considered criminal only in those cases when it will cause any consequences, in other words, it affects the life of a person. It follows that in such formulations an important role is played not only by the main sign of the objective side, a socially dangerous act, but also optional - negative consequences, harm. An example of such a crime is murder. In this composition, a special role is played by the consequence (death of an individual). Only with the onset of this consequence can we talk about the presence of a socially dangerous act.
Formal offense
Formal socially dangerous acts have a significant difference from those where a socially dangerous act plays a key role. The formal corpus delicti is a socially dangerous act, which is considered completed from the moment it is committed. It should be noted that in this case the presence of consequences does not play a special role, because they are not necessary for the legal qualification of an act as a crime. Some scholars believe that a completed crime with a formal composition is nonsense, but such a statement is extremely erroneous. There are no consequences for such acts, but the crime itself is harmful to the moral principles of society that have been taking shape for a long time. In addition to that objective side of crime with the formal composition is fully implemented, so they are considered completed.
The main features of the formal composition
Given the fact that the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation contains much more formal crimes than material ones, it is necessary to highlight the main features of such crimes.It should be noted that the criminal law norms very often contain conditions under which crimes can exist both with the presence of consequences and in their absence. Thus, the legislator allows the existence of several corpus delicti in specific life cases. It follows that there are such basic signs of a formal corpus delicti:
- The presence of consequences is optional.
- A crime is considered to be committed from the moment the socially dangerous act is performed.
- In some cases, there may be socially dangerous consequences.
- The objective side is fully satisfied.
Of course, some theorists of criminal law distinguish other aspects of this composition, however, the above are the most classic. Very often, a truncated form of the composition is distinguished, which is quite similar to the formal offense. The Russian Federation in the person of the legislator does not give any interpretation, however, crimes that can be called committed at the stage of preparation for them are considered truncated.
Conclusion
So, in the article we examined the formal corpus delicti and the material, which today exist in the criminal law of the Russian Federation. Also, based on other criteria, other compounds are distinguished, each of which characterizes a particular socially dangerous act in its own way.