Legal Nature and Signs of Confiscation of Property Under Russian Criminal Law

 The legal doctrine does not allow debate as to the legal nature of confiscation of property. The legal literature formulates approaches that determine the confiscation of property as a type of additional punishment, an independent measure of criminal liability, a criminal procedural means, a security measure and others, which requires scientific understanding.

The main purpose of the study is to determine the legal nature of confiscation of property and to limit the scope of its application from related legal institutions. This goal led to the setting of the following tasks: on the basis of an analysis of the positions presented in the doctrine, a study of the principle of implementation of the measure under consideration, including, in the context of the possible application of related legal consequences, to develop essential signs of confiscation of property.

The methodological basis of the study is the universal dialectical method of scientific knowledge, which made it possible to study the subject of research in relation to other legal phenomena, as well as general scientific methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy) and private scientific methods of cognition (formal-legal, comparative-legal).

Essential signs of confiscation of property are proposed, revealing its legal nature: provision by force of state coercion, implementation outside the framework of criminal liability, the presence of a non-punitive property, a limited area of influence on property status, application as the main means of resolving criminal law conflict.

The definition of confiscation of property was formulated and a conclusion was made on the compliance of the current formal status of confiscation of property as another measure of a criminal law nature with its essential characteristics.