OBJECTIVE ASPECT
Human existence is always connected with its any activity associated with certain human relations.
Showing the activity, the individual attempts to change, adapt or prevent the occurrence of any event or
to hasten(telesdirmekk) its occurrence. Such activity can be useful, harmful or neutral for public
interests. Its components are:
-consciousness, which covers the object, purpose and nature of its achievement;
- will as a necessary element of conscious activity.
- the activity itself, with its all attributes.
In other words, the active aspect of behavior is expressed in a definite influence on external world.
Crime is a form of human behaviour, which is socially dangerous and prohibited by criminal statute.
Behavior is objectified outside, by being expressed in specific cases, actions and its contents are
determined by human thoughts and aspirations. The criminal behaviour differs from usual one, be cause
it represents danger to public interests.
The components of human activity are divided into:
- psychic activity. - physical activity.
In the crime psychic activity is called the subjective aspect. The physical activity. consisting in bodily
movements and in respective changes, which cause to occur in the external world, is called objective,
that is, the outer aspect of human behavior. Hence, human action, including criminal one, has external
and internal. External features provide manifestation of human behavior in objective reality, internal
features represent mental processes, which occur in human mind and determine his/her behavior. In
life, they form a psychophysical unity. The external act of human behavior is characterized by a variety
of signs, having different legal meaning: concrete deed, methods of its commitment, means and
instruments used by offender, place, time and situation of committing the deed, the consequences,
which have occured in its result.
In general, the objective aspect of criminal activity is the implementation of plan by the subject through
active intervention in course of events and phenomena of the external world, or, on the contrary,
ommittion to act in the presence of legal duty to act. It also includes the consequences of this activity.
and likewise the causal link between them. The contents of the objective aspect of crime are described
in the disposition of criminal statute. Therefore, the separate types of crimes most often differ as to the
objective aspect. So, the objective aspect of the crime reads:
- what is the nature of the harm, caused by the crime?
- what act makes an encroachment?
- in what does the consequence of socially dangerous act consist? - what is the relation between the act
and consequences? - what are the circumstances of the crime and harm?
All these form contents of the objective aspect of crime. In the investigation of any criminal case, at first
the objective aspect of crime, the foundation of corpus de licti is fixed, and only on its basis the
subjective aspect of crime is determined. And so, in criminal legislation there isn't any crime, in the
description of which whether the objective aspect is not disclosed or mentioned about.
Objective features are reflected in General and Special parts of the Criminal Code. For example, art. 14
of the Criminal Code states that crime is a socially dangerous deed, committed with guilt and prohibited
by the criminal statute under the threat of punishment. As it is evident, the legislator determines that
the crime a deed, which is illegal and dangerous to society. it gives a description of such an objective
feature, as deed. Most completely the objective aspect of crime is reflected in the disposition of
articles of the Special part. For example, in art.221 of the Criminal Code hooliganism is defined as
intentional actions, grossly violating the public order, which expresses evident contempt for society,
accompanied by violence against citizens or the threat of its use, and likewise by the destruction of
another person's property. Here the signs of the objective aspect, that is the nature of actions, forming
the corpus delicti of hooliganism.
The objective aspect of crime is a process proceeding in space and time. It is characterized by the
sequence of events and phenomena, beginning from socially dangerous act and finishing with the
occurrence of criminal result. The objective features of any crime are expressed externally in committing
a deed dangerous for the society and causing or being able to cause harm to socially important values
and interests. These objective features of the crime are interrelated. They find their fixation in the
construction of corpus delicti of specific crimes. In this regard, the objective aspect of any crime is
characterized by specific features.
Signs of the objective aspect of crime form a system, within which they are di vided into two groups,
based on the frequency of occurrence in the dispositions of norms. Thus, the obligatory signs of the
objective aspect of all crimes are: - a socially dangerous act;
- socially dangerous consequences;
- the causality between socially dangerous act and socially dangerous consequences.
Facultative signs of the objective aspect are the following:
- method of committing a crime;
- place of committing a crime; -time of committing a crime;
- situation of committing a crime; - means of committing a crime;
- instruments of committing a crime.
$2. SOCIALLY DANGEROUS ACT
As to the criminal law, act is a guilty, socially dangerous, active or passive expression of human behavior
in the external world, doing harm to the socially important values and interests. Socially dangerous act
connects and defines the other signs of the objective aspect of crime. It generates socially dangerous
consequences, is committed by a concrete method, using the instruments and means of crime in at
concrete place. A deed is recognized as a human behavior. In some cases, the statute describes exactly
which activity of persons are socially dangerous, in other cases, criminal behavior may be represented
by variety of acts, complete list of which can not be described in the disposition of penal norm (for
example, hooliganism can be accomplished by the use of violence to citizens, smashing windows, etc.).
The term «deed is widely used by the legislator, mainly in the meaning identical to the notion of crime».
Article 3 of the Criminal Code states, that the basis for criminal responsibility is the commitment of deed
containing all signs of a corpus delicti provided by criminal statute.
A socially dangerous act as a sign of the objective aspect of crime should be complex and specific as to
its contents. Most often socially dangerous act is manifested in the form of physical influence on the
other people or on various objects of the external world. For example, beating someone, which causes
serious injury (art.126 of the Criminal Code).
Sometimes the disposition of the penal norm provides the set of behavioral acts to determine a socially
dangerous act. For example, the infliction of physical or mental suffering by systematic beatings or by
other violent actions (art. 133 of the Crim inal Code), illegal use of the trademark (art. 197 of the
Criminal Code). In some cases a socially dangerous act is committed by writing or pronouncing the
words. Action may be committed also mediocrely, by using other living beings, icluding other people. For
example, infliction of injury is possible by setting a dog on the victim; theft may be committed by a
specially trained dog or a child, not realizing the significance of his/her actions.
Mediocre infliction is also possible in a case of physical or mental violence, when the executor is forced
to act against his/her will and desire. Distinctive case of mediocre infliction is an execution of a criminal
order, given by the chief, despite the possible responsibility of the employee too.
Reduction of penal action only by the conscious bodily movement causes its extreme limitation. Because
in real life, in the commitment of socially dangerous actions persons not often use only physiological
abilities, and resort to specific means, instruments, forces and methods.
Thus, a socially dangerous action is the complex of all bodily movements, which includes the use of
objects of the external world, the forces and regularities of nature, and also actions of other persons,
consisting in orientation and active influence on the object of crime. Socially dangerous actions are
described in the dispositions of articles differently. In most cases, the disposition specifies the exact
signs of committed action, for ex ample, »transfer, acquisition, sale, storage, transportation or carrying
firearms, its basic parts, ammunition, explosives or explosive devices» (art.228 of the Criminal Code).
Other articles provide only the general description of actions, for example, <violation of safety rules
during building, mining and other activities» (art.222 of the Criminal Code).
Different degrees of specificity in describing the actions is essential, because the nature and gravity of
consequences of crimes depend on the contents of socially dangerous actions and methods of its
commitment. Socially dangerous action can be expressed in the form of single action and in the form of
several consistently repeated actions. There exists so-called continuing and lasting actions. The
continuing actions consist of several acts, directed to the realization of single criminal intent. The
beginning of continuing actions is the first criminal act, the end is the last, for example, in the cases,
when stealage of money of things is realized in parts (art.179 of the Criminal Code). Lasting action takes
place in cases, when the beginning of action is the act of violation of criminal statute and the end is the
termination of failure of legal obligation due to detention, surrender or expiration of the conditions,
determining the criminality of deed. Mende anlanadim .An example to this is the desertion (art.334 of
the Criminal Code), which begins with unauthorized abandonment of a military unit and ends at the
moment of detention of the perpetrator.
The contents of socially dangerous consequences are determined by contents of objects, in which they
create harmful changes. The Criminal Code provides species objects. As to them, it is necessary to
determine types of socially dangerous consequences. The classification of socially dangerous
consequences should be based on their qualitative and quantitative characteristics . Depending on
expressiveness of consequences in objective reality consequences are divided into:
- material consequences;
- immaterial consequences.
Material consequences include:
physical harm; - property harm.
Physical harm is the harm, connected with the physical state of the person as a victim of crime, that is
the harm, which is inflicted to the life and health of the person. The most serious physical harm is the
death of the victim. Physical harm includes socially dangerous acts, inflicting injury as to different
seriousness. Injury is subdivided depending on the amount of disablement, and also on duration of the
disease into light, less serious and serious injury.
Property harm is connected with objects, which are in someone's property, for example destruction of
property, its stealage. Material consequences in the form of property damage are measured in unit
values. This refers to all types of stealage, damage and destruction of property, and also causing
material damage in malpractice, abuse of official powers and in commitment of other similar crimes For
accuracy of qualification, property damage shall be expressed in scales, definite monetary dimension of
the value of matter of the crime. Property harm divided into:
-harm in considerable scale (evasion of taxes in considerable scale. In the note to art.213 of the Criminal
Code it is noticed, that considerable scale> in this case means the sum from two to fifty thousand
manats);
-harm in large scale (consumer fraud. In the note to art.200 of the Criminal Code it is noticed, that the
«large scale» in this article means the sum above forty manats).
Immaterial consequences represents the changes in the object of encroachment, as a result of which
the penally protected interests of society and State are violated. These consequences are not connected
with physical influence on the external world or on the person. Immaterial harm has the following types:
-harm done on the rights and legal interests of citizens (for example, the viola tion of citizens' equality-
art. 154 of the Criminal Code);
- political harm (for example, high treason-art 274 of the Criminal Code);
-harm done on the legally protected interests of the society and the State (for example, abuse of official
powers-art.308 of the Criminal Code):
- environmental harm (for example, water pollution-art.250 of the Criminal Code);
- informational harm (for example, illegal accessing of computer information art.271 of the Criminal
Code).
Another important question is how to determine the scale of immaterial damage. For example,
falsification of election and referendum documents, knowingly wrong counting the votes or violation of
the secrecy of voting (art. 161 of the Crim inal Code) entails dysfunction in the electoral process, and
also infringe citizens" electoral rights. The boundaries between crime and non-criminal civil fault pass
through the greatness of harm, which depends on the scale and value of falsified documents. In
particular, the matter is, whether the secrecy of voting of tens of thousands of electors is violated, or
early voting of large or small number of electors is performed, or how long election campaign on voting
day will be conducted, etc. These and the similar specific parameters of results will decide whether it is
necessary to initiate criminal proceedings, or not. As to the construction of corpus delicti socially
dangerous consequences can be:
- simple,
- composite.
In the first case harm is done on one object, and in the second-on several objects of criminal
encroachment. So, for example, in intentional murder (simple corpus delicti) (art. 120 of the Criminal
Code) harm is done on one object-human life The composite corpus delicti of robbery with violence (art.
181 of the Criminal Code) has several objects - the safety, health and property interests of the citizen
From here derives the harm of robbery with violence physical harm and harm on the property. As to the
sense of qualification of the crime socially dangerous consequences are divided into:
- obligatory consequences; - additional consequences.
Obligatory consequences-are the consequences, the existence of which is necessary for the realization
of penal norm, providing the prohibition for causing only these consequences, for example, infliction of
serious injury (p.1 of art.126). The Criminal Code provides many articles, having two or more
consequences They are called corpus delicti, qualified by additional grave consequences. For example,
intentional infliction of serious injury, which causes the death of victim resulting by negligence (p.3,
art.126). In specified corpus delicti the main socially dangerous consequence, which gives the first
damage to the object, is the intentional infliction of serious injury. The second is the subsequent more
grave consequence-death of the person. Both of them are obligatory consequences directly described in
the disposition of penal norm. There are specifics in the forms of guilt too: to the main consequence
refers intention, to the second one-obligatorily negligence.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the significance of socially dangerous consequences as a sign of
corpus delicti consists in the following: -they operate as leading base for criminalization of deeds;
- as an obligatory sign of crimes and their corpus delicti they take part in the qualification of crimes;
- they serve as a decisive differentiative sign of crimes and non-criminal offenses or insignificant
offenses, which don't constitute a crime,
- in imposition of punishment further consequences, which are beyond corpus delicti (if the person
foresaw them), are considered by the court as aggravating circumstance.
§4. CAUSAL LINK BETWEEN SOCIALLY DANGEROUS ACT AND SOCIALLY DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES
To charge the person with occurred harmful consequences and to qualify his/her actions as to the article
of the Criminal Code, it is necessary to determine the causality between socially dangerous act,
committed by the person and occurred socially dangerous consequences.
The philosophical categories «cause» and «consequence» reflect objective cause-effect relationship and
have importance. Cause is the notion, without which there wouldn't be any other effect. The
relationship between cause and effect is called causality. The causal link is relationship of cause and
consequence, the transition from cause to consequence. Criminal law theory based on the fundamental
provisions of philosophy has developed the following penal concept of causality: causal link is a relation
between two events, in which one event- -the human act by internal necessity creats another event the
consequence. The existence of causal link between them means, that without act effects can not occur.
In this, action (or inaction) of the person may be considered as the cause of the consequence, if it
corresponds to the nature of action (or inaction) specified in the statute, it precedes result as to time,
represents a necessary condition and real possibility for its occurrence, and also causes the occurrence
of criminal result without intervention of strangers.
Thus, the deed should precede as to time the socially dangerous consequence. Only in this case, the act
may create a real possibility of the occurrence of consequences. The effect cannot appear before the
cause. If it takes place, it should be only one conclusion: it has arisen for another cause. So, for example,
the doctor cannot be responsible for incorrect operation, if irreversible processes, which caused the
death of patient, have occured before the operation.
The act should be a necessary condition for the occurred consequences. A simple sequence is not
enough for existence of causal link. The situation, when the deed precedes the consequences on time,
doesn't necessarily indicate the causal link between them. Concrete human behavior should create the
objective tendency of events, which will lead to occurrence of socially dangerous consequences. In this
case, the act appears to be a necessary condition for consequences. For example, during the fight one
person knowingly causes another person knife wounds, inflicts a serious injury, as a result of which
another person dies. Here exists the causal link between the actions and death, because the wound,
inflicted by one person is a necessary condition for another person's death.
It should be also noted, that not every act, being a condition for occurrence of consequences, may seem
to be its cause. It is necessary, that the act should be a direct cause of consequences. For example, a
person (A.) caused another (B.) knife wounds, inflicting a serious injury, which was operated in a
hospital. But at the end of the operation the surgeon for negligence left gauze tampon in abdominal
cavity of the wounded, which entailed an infection, and the next day B. died from peritonitis. In this case
the actions of A. were a necessary condition for the death of B.. If B. was not inflicted with a serious
injury, he wouldn't be operated and would be alive. But, the intervention of surgeon stopped the
development of causality generated by the actions of A.. In this example, the causality between the
actions of A. and the death of B. is absent and there is causal link between socially dangerous inaction of
surgeon and occured consequences.
The act should be, at least, antisocial, containing a certain risk, the possibility of harmful consequences.
The determination of the fact, that the deed of a person was a necessary condition for the occurrence of
harmful consequences, isn't enough to bring him/her to criminal responsibility. Limitation by the sign of
necessary condition means, that any deed of a person, including socio-neutral or even socially useful,
can be as a ground for bringing him/her to criminal responsibility. they can act as qualifying features,
aggravating the punishment (for exam ple, art. 144, defining the responsibility for abduction, contains in
the part 2 the following features: the same deed with the use of violence, which is dangerous for life or
health of the victim or with use of weapons or items used as weapons);
- beyond corpus delicti they can act as a mitigating or aggravating circum stances and can be considered
in imposition of punishment
$6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OBJECTIVE ASPECT OF CRIME
The objective aspect of the crime has multi-pronged significance. First of all, it's one of the elements of
the corpus delicti. The absence of objective aspect of crime means the absence of corpus delicti. Thus,
the objective aspect of the crime:
- being an element of corpus delicti, enters the base for the criminal responsibility:
- has an influence on the qualification of crime; - allows to distinguish crimes, which are similar as to
other elements and signs of corpus delicti;
- allows to differ crimes from other offenses and disciplinary misconducts;
- in the form of its signs by the court is considered in imposition of punishment to the perpetrator.
The objective aspect of the crime is also a legal basis for the qualification of crimes. Frequently the
correct definition of the signs of objective aspect allows determine the object of crime and subject of
crime.
The signs of the objective aspect of a crime are completely and accurately de scribed in norms of the
Special part of the Criminal Code, they are: a description of the objective aspect of intentional murder
committed under heat of passion (art. 122 of the Criminal Code); intentional infliction of serious or less
serious injury under heat of passion (art. 129 of the Criminal Code), sexual violence (art.150 of the
Criminal Code), etc
