SOCIAL AND PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRIMINAL OFFENCE:
THE ISSUE OF FAIRNESS
NATALIIA SAVINOVA
Doctor of Law, Senior Research Officer
The article makes the case for considering the principle of fairness from the objective standpoint of society and the subjective positions of the individual. The author suggests that the social and personal significance of a criminal offence in their legislative regulation and enforcement practice be included as components in such categories of evaluation of fairness as the guarantee of human rights and the trend of criminal justice. The article argues that the social significance of a criminal offence should be considered from the viewpoint of social expectations and the demands of society as the guarantor of the fairness principle in criminalization. The social significance depends on the level of general, social and legal culture of society in which the consideration of an act as a criminal offence and criminalization takes place. It is suggested in the article that the personal significance of a criminal offence should be viewed as the double unity of the significance of an offence for both the victim and the perpetrator. Such an evaluation can demonstrate the significance for separate individuals, depending on their biological, psychological, intellectual and social characteristics. It is concluded that the negative evaluation of a certain act as a criminal offence may lead to effective and useful criminalization only in case of its positive social significance. The personal significance of an act directly affects corpus delicti. In this regard, it is sensible for the legislative practice of criminal justice to allow for the influence of the personal significance of an act for the victim on the objective elements, and the in¬fluence of personal significance for the perpetrator on the subjective elements of corpus delicti.
