MODERN APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING THE SUBJECT OF CRIMINAL OFFENSE

Abstract

The article analyzes the approaches existing in the theory of criminal law to determining the subject of a criminal offense and its place within the criminal offense. The periods of formation of scientific thought on the subject of criminal offense, which was transformed in accordance with the development of the theory of the object of criminal offense, are considered. The positions of scientists on the relationship between the subject of a criminal offense and the object of a criminal offense are investigated and the concept that the subject of a criminal offense is an optional feature of the object of a criminal offense is preferred. It is emphasized that a common feature of the studied definitions of the subject of criminal offenses is the indication of the role of the location of the subject of the criminal offense in the mechanism of committing a criminal offense: scientists emphasize that the subject of a criminal offense interacts with the object in a certain way (creates, modifies, receives for use or disposal, damages, destroys, etc.) and thus causes harm to the object of the criminal offense. It is noted that the traditional understanding of the subject of a criminal offense as things of the material world is gradually expanding by recognizing electrical energy, atmospheric space, information, copyright and related rights, and other intangible entities, material services, works, property rights, human organs and tissues, living beings as subjects of a criminal offense. Critically assessing such a possibility, attention is drawn to the fact that, for example, the right to property is a certain benefit that is endowed to the subject of such a right. It is impossible to seize the right to property: obtaining documents confirming the right to property in an illegal manner does not create new legal relations, the guilty party receives only the appearance of a legal right, but is not endowed with such a right itself. As a result of the study, it is proposed that the subject of a criminal offense be understood as material objects, interacting with which the subject of a criminal offense causes harm to the object of the criminal offense.