Nikolay I. Pikurov

The article attempts to identify, using the work of Moscow State University professor N.F. Kuznetsova as an example, the causes of the emergence and resolution of discussions on controversial issues of criminal law regulation. The focus is on three concepts of criminal law: crime, corpus delicti and illegality; their interrelation and difference in functions when used in different areas of criminal law are shown. The purpose of one or another approach to defining these concepts is revealed, lawmaking and law enforcement errors caused by deviation from the nature of the corpus delicti and criminal illegality are shown, the purpose of the doctrine of criminal law to show the danger of arbitrary transformation of an offense into a crime in the process of criminalization of an act by arbitrary use of the structure of the corpus delicti, including with administrative prejudice.