The State Duma excluded from the list of aggravating circumstances the circumstance that the crime was committed by an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

SOTA and the Moscow agency report that the relevant law was adopted on May 30 immediately in the second and third readings. At the time of the writing of Meduza’s news, the voting results in the third reading were not indicated in  the bill card .

The law amends  Article 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The wording of it, which is still in force, states that “the commission of an intentional crime by an employee of an internal affairs body” is recognized as an aggravating circumstance.

The bill was developed by deputies from the Communist Party. The explanatory note to it says that the current norm of the Criminal Code “discriminates” the police. It does not apply to employees of other state structures – for example, the fact that the offender works in court, the prosecutor’s office, the FSB and other law enforcement agencies is not considered an aggravating circumstance.

According to the deputies, this “underlines the undeserved and unfair distrust” of the police. The authors of the bill also stated that according to statistics, “the number of crimes among employees of all law enforcement agencies averages no more than 1% of the total number of crimes committed in the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs accounts for less than one third of this one percent.”

A clause on tougher punishment for crimes for employees of internal affairs bodies was included in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 2010. The explanatory note to the relevant bill stated that this would strengthen “the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of citizens and organizations from illegal actions” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The amendment was adopted at the initiative of Dmitry Medvedev, who then held the post of President of Russia.

(C)MEDUZA 2023