General legal consequences of a criminal record in decisions of the Constitutional Court of Russia

Relevance. A criminal record as a category of criminal law also entails general legal consequences for a citizen convicted in the past, which are valid even after its repayment or removal. The work analyzes the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation formulated over the past year under the provisions of the current and new legislation establishing a particular ban on persons who have a criminal record.

The purpose of the study is to determine the trends in the law enforcement practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in terms of the new general legal restrictions already existing and introduced by the creator applied to previously convicted citizens.

Objectives: to critically comprehend the substantive part of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation made on the complaints of former convicts challenging the constitutionality of certain laws affecting them in civil rights.

Methodology. When writing the work, the scientific toolkit included methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, as well as formal-legal, system-analytical, formal-logical methods and a method for analyzing judicial practice.

The results of the study include the formulation of the legal position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation regarding the restrictions on certain civil rights on the basis of a criminal record.

Conclusion. Separate decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the subject of consideration of which were issues of unconstitutionality of legal norms restricting ex-convicts in their civil rights, cause a critical assessment. Some of the lifetime restrictive measures the justices agree on are excessive and undifferentiated; their introduction is justified by the established practice, but its depravity is not appreciated. Conclusions on the admissibility of general legal prohibitions are based on the assumption that previously convicted citizens can again commit a crime. When deciding decisions in which constitutional provisions with restrictions on persons convicted in the past are recognized, the category, severity and subjective side of those encroachments, the commission of which entailed a criminal record, are not taken into account. This practice of restricting constitutional rights and freedoms does not meet the requirements of justice and does not correspond to the very concept as a temporary legal state of the convicted person.

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