THE CRIMINAL RECORD OF A CANDIDATE FOR ELECTIVE POSITION: THE RUSSIAN PRACTICE

Abstract

In the current electoral legislation of the Russian Federation and foreign countries, various censuses of active and passive suffrage are fixed. One of the limitations of registering a candidate for an elected position is the existence of a criminal record for the commission of a criminal offense. The authors of the article present the dynamics of changes in the legislative norms of modern Russia, which establish a restriction of passive electoral right on the basis of the candidate's conviction. There is a consistent legislative tightening of the requirements for candidates for elected office precisely from the position of an impeccable reputation and the absence of a criminal record. At the same time, the legal position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation regarding the excessive restrictions of passive electoral rights of citizens on the basis of conviction is analyzed. It is indicated not only the legal, but also the social significance of the limitations of the suffrage. Judgments about the ambiguity of the deprivation of the suffrage of persons convicted of imprisonment for committing serious and (or) particularly serious crimes are voiced indefinitely and undifferentiated. Also in the proposed article, the authors identify the legal, political and moral and ethical aspects of the indication of the criminal record and (or) the criminal prosecution of the candidate when applying for registration to the relevant election commission. The conducted analysis of law enforcement and judicial practice made it possible to conclude that in the current legislation of the Russian Federation there is no clear unambiguous understanding of the term "criminal record". It is noted that in the decisions of election commissions and judicial acts there are examples of directly opposite, mutually exclusive interpretations of the legal provisions. Proceeding from the generalized analysis of the normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, law enforcement practice and doctrinal approaches to the institution of limiting the electoral rights of citizens, an authorial approach is proposed to understand and apply the fact of criminal record as the basis for eliminating a citizen from the election process.