Concept of corruption in Russian legislation and legal literature
In the Russian legal science, the question of the concept of corruption refers to a number of discussions. The main difference is in the number of interpretations of the term "corruption". Some define corruption as bribery-corruption authorities, as any other mercenary behaviour official. The official definition of corruption is given in the federal law "On combating corruption ". The main lack of the formal definition of corruption is the fact that legislature understands corruption as a number of separate cases of corruption behaviour. Following the logic of the legislator, one should recognize that any abuse of official position, any bribe-taking or giving bribes, etc., is corruption. Meanwhile, the concept of a social phenomenon cannot be provided through individual cases of this phenomenon. "Part" (social action) can not define the "whole " (social phenomenon). Such an approach blurs the line between the permissible and the forbidden, between the just and the unjust, between the socially useful or socially harmful behaviour. This definition without valid reasons significantly expands the boundaries of the negative social phenomena, including acts that may be committed in the interests of the company. Another disadvantage of the legislative definition of corruption is that it ignores the many obvious cases of corruption behaviour (lobbying, patronage, cronyism, nepotism, connivance, committed for the benefit of private individuals without any property of remuneration or pecuniary benefits). It is proposed to understand corruption as the "substitution by representatives of authorities of interests of the society by interests of a private nature". This definition allows allocating the following significant signs of corruption: 1) the object of corruption assault, "the public interest"; 2) the subject of corruption behaviour, "representative of authorities"; and 3) of corrupt behaviour, consisting in the "substitution" of some interests by other ones; 4) corruption motive and corruption objective of the conduct of authorities. The definition of corruption proposed by the authors is able to cover all kinds of corruption behaviour, separate crimes of corruption from official crimes. The criterion of differentiation is the motive and the purpose of committing a crime. Any corruption offence implies the existence of the so-called "corruption motive" and "corruption goals''. The motive for corruption behaviour of a representative of the power is the desire to satisfy their needs and (or) the needs of other persons at the expense of the interests of the company. Under the corrupt purpose we understand the desire of a representative of authorities to receive property or non-property benefits for themselves and (or) other persons to the detriment of the interests of the society. It is emphasized that corruption-related crime as a relatively large social and legal phenomenon is much wider than the official crimes.