Criminal law principle of justice: history of the development

Abstract

Currently, the provisions of the principle of justice in criminal law establish the requirement of proportionality of the punishment imposed to the crime committed and the personality of the perpetrator, as well as the prohibition of double responsibility for the same act. This legislative understanding of the principle of justice was formed in the course of a long historical development. Representatives of doctrine and subjects of law-making activity formulated various aspects of the criminal law principle of justice in order to determine the actual meaning of this principle and to establish its limits. In the article a complex analysis of views on the category of justice in criminal law is made, the history of development of the Russian criminal legislation in terms of regulation of various aspects of the principle of justice is investigated. The author comes to the conclusion that the classical doctrine connects the category of criminal justice with punishment and includes the requirements of proportionality of punishment to the crime and the personality of the perpetrator. At the same time, in different historical periods there were different views on the content of the principle of justice: the idea of proportionality received different content, and punishment was built on different grounds (either on the theory of retribution and punishment for the deed, or on the theory of expediency).

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