Criminal Law Violations in Labour Safety at Coal Mining Enterprises

Abstract

The paper deals with the qualification of criminal violations of safety rules in coal mining enterprises in the light of recent changes in Art. 216 and 217 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as well as the adoption of a new Resolution of the Plenum of Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on violations of safety rules during operations. Firstly, the old and new editions of Art. 216 and 217 of the Criminal Code are compared. After that, the distinctive features of the articles under consideration are examined with the help of the new Plenum Resolution, federal laws and bylaws. Finally, the case law on this issue has been reviewed since 2016 with consideration of specific examples. In the paper, the authors do not address the issues of qualifying violations of safety rules at coal mining enterprises under Art.143 of the Criminal Code as it has not been changed. At the end of the study, the authors formulate the qualification rules taking into account the latest changes, without proposing any changes to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and other regulatory legal acts that do not include the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, i.e. the results of the study can be used in practice. The problem is that there is a lack of research of the changes we are considering in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and even more in relation to the coal mining industry.