The Readjournment by Court Decision

The Supreme Council deputies considered in the course of the plenary session the law-in-draft humanizing the norms of the Criminal Code in relation to a certain category of convicts who have children. The changes were proposed by the Chairperson of the Committee on Legislation, Protection of Rights and Freedoms of Citizens Galina Antyufeeva and her deputy Grigory Dyachenko. The essence of the changes is to give the court the right to consider the issue of re-granting a readjournment of punishment for violating the law during the period of a previously granted readjournment. A repeated readjournment, according to the law-in-draft, applies only to crimes of negligence or intentional crimes of minor or moderate severity, where the term of imprisonment is less than 5 years.

The law-in-draft was presented by its co-author Grigory Dyachenko. He explained to the Supreme Council deputies that Article 81 of the Criminal Code sets out the procedure for applying a readjournment of sentence to convicted pregnant women, women with children under 14, men with children under 14 and who are the only parent. This article excludes those sentenced to imprisonment for a term exceeding 5 years for serious and especially serious crimes.

According to the authors, the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code will encourage convicts to law-abiding behavior and help maintain their family ties with children. If the court does not allow a second readjournment or if during the readjournment  of sentence the convict committed a crime not of medium gravity, but a serious or especially serious crime, the court cancels the readjournment  of sentence, according to the law-in-draft. Punishment in this case is imposed on the basis of a combination of sentences, that is, for 2 crimes committed.

The Supreme Council adopted the law-in-draft on amendments to the Criminal Code in the first reading. The relevant committee will continue to work on it in preparation for the second reading, taking into account the proposals received.