The meaning of analogy in Russian criminal law
The scientific article investigates one of the controversial issues of criminal law science - the meaning of analogy in Russian criminal law. The author defines its legal nature and its relationship with the fundamental principles of criminal law (legality, equality of citizens before the law, guilt, justice, humanism). Special attention is paid to the specifics of the criminal law analogy at various stages of criminal law enforcement activity. The researcher proves the groundlessness of preventing the application of the Russian criminal law by analogy, and suggests the grounds for the correctness of the use of analogy in criminal law. It is concluded that the analogy is widespread in criminal legislation and has significant prospects in terms of developing general rules for the creation, interpretation and application of legal norms, the qualification of crimes, criminal prosecution, exemption from criminal liability and punishment. A significant disadvantage of using analogy is the fact that the correctness of the resolution of a legal case may largely depend on the subjective discretion of a particular person (investigator, investigator, prosecutor, judge), his knowledge, experience and even personal qualities, which does not always allow avoiding various legal errors.