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The draft law is aimed at humanization of Russian criminal legislation.

In particular, the amendments relate to crimes of medium severity. In order to individualise punishment and ensure fair verdicts it is proposed to give courts the authority in the presence of mitigating and the absence of aggravating circumstances to change the category of criminal offences to less serious ones, but not by more than one category.

A new scale has been developed allowing for more precise application of criminal law provisions related to replacing one type of punishment with another.

In order to expand the court’s opportunities to appoint non-custodial sentences, a new form of punishment has been introduced: compulsory works.

A number of provisions are aimed at mitigating the liability when sentencing for multiple offenses.

As part of the general concept of criminal policy humanization, it is proposed to supplement the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with an article providing for the possibility of exempting from criminal liability a person who has committed a financial crime for the first time, if that person has compensated for the damages caused in full and transferred to the federal budget the monetary compensation in the amount of 400% of the amount of damages.

The mechanism for providing a stay of execution for first-time offenders committing small and moderate drug-related crimes suffering from drug addiction will also serve the purpose of criminal legislation humanization. In this regard, it is proposed to supplement the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with an article stipulating that the court may defer serving a sentence of imprisonment for such persons who have expressed a desire to voluntarily undergo medical treatment for drug addiction until the end of treatment. Depending on the results of treatment and at the discretion of the court the offender may be exempted from punishment or from serving the remainder of the sentence.

This creates an additional incentive for undergoing medical treatment for drug addiction by first-time offenders and for their subsequent social adaptation.

The punishment for certain crimes that do not pose a danger to society should be classified as administrative violations, which should be reflected in the Code of Administrative Offences and the relevant articles of the Criminal Code should be abolished.

The amendments are also related to computer crimes.

In connection with the establishment of the Customs Union within EurAsEC it is proposed to amend certain articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

It is also proposed to introduce amendments to the article of the Criminal Procedure Code which regulates the grounds and procedure for appointing house arrest as punishment for the persons suspected or accused of committing a crime. This will reduce the number of persons in respect of whom the punishment appointed by the court will be detention.