This decision can hardly be called late, it is too ripe," - a lawyer examining the damage thresholds according to criminal articles.
The Ministry of Justice proposed to change the limits of large and especially large amounts of damage by virtue of 49 sections of the criminal law. Some of the amounts have not changed for more than 20 years.
For example, for large-scale theft, it is proposed to increase the threshold from 250 thousand to 1.5 million rubles, for especially large-scale theft - from 1 million to 6 million. Now a fraud in the amount of a million rubles can already be classified as particularly large.
Lawyer, managing partner at the law firm "Zebeida and Partners" Alexander Zebeida considers changes to be necessary for a long time. The current thresholds were installed back in 2003. During this period, prices increased approximately sixfold, and the average wage increased 18.5 times.
"In 2003, the amount of grand theft could buy almost 6 square meters of an apartment in Moscow, but today in any case it is less than one."
The most problematic threshold is 250 thousand rubles. If it is exceeded, theft or fraud goes from the category of moderately serious crimes to serious crimes. This prevents the possibility of ending the case through the reconciliation of the parties or the imposition of a court fine, even if the damage is fully compensated.
"That's why the decision is to raise these thresholds; this can of course be a one-time decision, but a systemic decision is needed so that such a problem does not return in principle."
Raising the threshold will have a retroactive effect and can be applied to sentences already given, as it improves the situation of the convicted. But the increase in fines, which is also discussed, will only apply to future violations.