According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the country's main value is the life and rights of its citizens. Various articles of the Criminal Code are used to protect them, including “Bringing to Suicide”. Modern lawyers and lawyers unanimously argue that such an article, although often controversial, is simply necessary for any legal state. Where is that unsteady line between the defendant’s guilt and the victim’s own desire to give up life?
General information
What impact can trigger a person’s decision to part with life? The answer to this question is contained in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Bringing to suicide, punishable by law, is carried out through threats, ill-treatment, as well as systematic humiliation of dignity. All other methods of influence, which entailed the voluntary departure of the victim, are not a criminal offense. Such information is enshrined in article 110 of the Criminal Code, the crime belongs to the moderate category of severity.
Causes of suicide, punishable effects on humans
Let us dwell in more detail on the main punishable ways of bringing a person to a critical state. The most common cause of suicide is systematic threats. They can be carried out in humans or face-to-face, in writing or orally, this does not really matter. Also, the essence of the threats does not affect the corpus delicti (harm to life, health, deprivation of livelihood, reprisal of property and other, blackmail). Single threats in this case are usually not taken into account and are not considered a way of bringing a person.
Bringing to suicide often occurs through ill-treatment of a person. Aggressive influence can be single or systematic, not the frequency of its rendering is important, but the result to which it led. Abuse can take many forms:
- Physical effects, harm to health.
- Causing mental suffering.
- Imprisonment contrary to the law.
- Coercion to sexual contact.
- Deprivation of food and water, housing.
As for systematic humiliation (a single is not considered), it is expressed in regular slander, moral humiliation, ridicule of the physical or other shortcomings of the victim. Also quite often, public disclosure of secret information belongs to this category of impact.
We identify the offender and the victim
Like all crimes, bringing to suicide has an objective and subjective side, and accordingly, the subject and object, which need to be discussed in more detail. It’s easy to define them, for this it’s enough to focus on the title of the article.
The object, of course, is the victim himself, who has laid hands on himself or attempted to take his own life. Under certain conditions, absolutely anyone can become a potential victim of such a crime. Depending on the method of exposure, adolescents and mature, self-affirming people are exposed to emotional (and sometimes physical) stress.
The subject of the article “Bringing to Suicide” is a person who has reached the age of 16 and who reports on his actions.That is, threats and violence on his part against the victim are carried out with the aim of bringing the latter to a borderline state, which ultimately leads to irreversible consequences. In addition, the subject must be an individual. Only subject to all the conditions indicated may criminal liability arise.
Parties to the crime and its composition
During the process, the behavior of the suspect is studied, the conditions or actions created by him, the decision on suicide or attempt on him, the relationship between the impact and the final act (objective aspects) are required. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that a suicide note is not taken into account or is rarely taken into account when considering a case.
The subjective side is directly the fault of the offender, his unlawful intent or actions based on negligence.
According to the official position, the corpus delicti is material. Conclusions about this are based on information from the theory of criminal law. A crime is considered completed when committing suicide or committing suicide.
Responsibility for the crime
The code provides for criminal liability for bringing to suicide, however, according to many experts, it is not rigid enough. So, the guilty party can be sentenced to imprisonment for up to 5 years with the suicide of the victim, or up to 3 years in case of attempted suicide. The indicated period is the maximum and is most often appointed in the case when bullying and persecution are directed at a minor. Also in such a situation, the judge has the right to classify the impact of the guilty party on the victim as intentional homicide.
In many cases, it is impossible to prove the guilt and evil intent of the offender, and he avoids fair punishment, without ceasing to bear a direct threat to society, because there is no guarantee that aggression and bullying will not be repeated against another person.
Responsibility for bringing to suicide occurs only after obtaining evidence and a court decision. Punishment applies to persons over 16 years of age.
Evidence of crime
How can article 110 of “Bringing to Suicide” be proven? As mentioned above, suicide notes do not affect the course of the case, but in some cases they can be considered in court.
Representatives of the injured party will need to enlist the help of witnesses; their testimony is the only reliable way by which the culprit can be identified in jail. It would be useful to prepare, if any, correspondence with threats, blackmail, and other unpleasant content.
Indirectly, the reputation of the suspect may also influence the decision of the judge. The presence of such precedents or scandalous characterization will be the best confirmation for any evidence.
Judicial facts and cases
How effective is article 110 (Bringing to Suicide)? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to turn to domestic judicial practice. Having generalized a sufficiently large layer of information, it is possible to draw the following disappointing conclusions:
- In daily proceedings, this type of crime is more common than it might seem.
- The maximum term for cases is practically not assigned.
- Despite the fact that punishment only applies to persons who have reached the age of sixteen, younger offenders can also commit provocative acts, in which case their actions can be regarded under Article 105
- The potential risk group for article 110 includes adolescents and single people in the middle age range.
- Art.“Bringing to suicide" is not applied at the stage of preparation for the death of the victims (with notification of intentions, choice of weapons, etc.).
Instead of a conclusion
Is suicide a criminal offense? The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has a clear answer to this score: yes, it is. Punishment for aggressive effects on the human psyche can lead to a real reduction in the number of suicides in our country, and yet, according to statistics, Russia is in one of the first places in the summary table of sad data.
Prevention of emotional violence consists not only in imposing an adequate punishment for a crime, but also in conducting social, cultural, ideological measures aimed at combating this phenomenon.
