Criminalization of bribery: legislative potential and real judicial practice

Introduction. The article notes that for many years, the states, including the Russian Federation, have been looking for ways to counteract such a negative phenomenon as corruption. Corruption is identified as one of the threats to national security, and countering it is the most important activity of various government structures and public organizations. The eradication of corruption is one of the strategic national priorities. Bribery occupies a special place among corruption crimes. The authors draw attention to the fact that, despite the measures taken to combat corruption, statistics still show unfavorable trends, which requires finding the reasons for this and developing new ways to combat corruption in general, as well as its manifestation, such as bribery.

Materials and methods. The study is based on the analysis of statistical data on the number of corruption crimes committed, including bribery, on the number of persons prosecuted for bribery, as well as on measures applied to those who commit these crimes. When studying the topic, such methods as statistical, formal-logical, comparative-legal were used.

Analysis. The article analyzes criminal legislation from the point of view of its effectiveness in countering bribery, defines the vectors of development of criminal law norms since the adoption of the criminal law. It is noted that neither the tightening nor the mitigation of penalties for bribery had a serious impact on the dynamics of bribery, which raises certain questions related not only to the quality of the criminal law, but also to the practice of its application.

Results. Having studied the results of the consideration of criminal cases on bribery, the authors conclude that the potential of the criminal law in terms of punishability of bribery could be used by the courts to a greater extent.

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