Distinguishing the rehabilitation of Nazism from related crimes: theory and practice

The subject of this study is the criminal law prohibition on the rehabilitation of Nazism, established by the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation. The author emphasizes the importance of considering aspects of the qualification of this act in the presence of a large number of related crimes, which in all their elements are very close to the one under consideration. The article examines in detail such crimes that are classified as extremist, as well as vandalism, slander, destruction or damage to military graves, monuments, obelisks, other memorial structures or objects perpetuating the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland or its interests, or dedicated to the days of military glory of Russia. The author draws attention to the presence of similar features of the corpus delicti aimed at prohibiting the rehabilitation of Nazism with administrative offenses, in particular, with article 20.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. The methodology of the research consists of such methods as formal legal, logical, systematic, as well as the method of analysis. The novelty of this study lies in the complexity and comprehensiveness of the consideration of the stated issues. The author argues that the difficulty of qualification lies in the fact that actions can simultaneously fall under both "extremist" crimes and directly under the corpus delicti, which enshrines the prohibition of rehabilitation of Nazism. The author concludes that the identification of extremism and the prohibition on the rehabilitation of Nazism is incorrect, and Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is special in relation to Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author's special contribution is manifested in a large number of analyzed sources of judicial practice from different years, on the basis of which the author drew his conclusions and justified the terminology used by the legislator in constructing various provisions of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.