Administrative prejudiction and the limits of expansion in criminal law regulation

Abstract

This article examines the limits of criminal liability in the context of expanding criminal law regulation. It is argued that the strengthening of criminal prohibitions and the increasing complexity of criminal offences blur the substantive boundaries of criminal liability and reduce legal certainty. The limits of criminal liability are considered as a system of formal and substantive restrictions on criminal law intervention, ensuring the preservation of criminal law as a measure of last resort. Particular attention is paid to administrative prejudice as a mechanism that transforms the grounds for criminal liability and creates the risk of disproportionate criminalization in the absence of an independent assessment of the social danger of an act. Based on the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and clarifications of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the restrictive role of the principle of proportionality is argued. This principle presupposes the inseparable unity of the nature and degree of social danger in determining the limits of criminal liability.