In criminal, administrative, civil law, terms that have a specific interpretation are commonly used. An example of this is light bodily harm. What is it, how to prove their application? What paragraph of the law governs this offense? And what kind of punishment is provided for him? We will consider these issues further.
Bodily harm
What is it? Bodily injury - causing damage to the physical condition of a citizen. But here comes a lot. From a bruise, abrasion to a knife wound, a blow with a heavy object, which can lead to disability and even death of the victim.
The fact of causing a citizen all bodily harm (light and heavy) must be fixed! The presence of a supporting document will be fundamental for your appeal to the police, prosecutors, and the judicial system.
Specialists of a medical institution must record the damage inflicted. And an important feature - in relation to you, they should be a third party. That is, even being a certified doctor, you will not be able to fix the same slight bodily injury yourself.
We also note such a fact. The medical certificate of inflicting light bodily harm to you for investigative, legal proceedings is sometimes not enough. Employees are asked to provide recordings from video devices, outdoor video surveillance cameras, etc. The already “historical” method is also popular - attracting witnesses.
Types of bodily harm
It would seem that there are only three groups of them. But one and the same harm to health can be assessed by two different physicians both as inflicting light bodily injuries and as other harm. Why so? You will find out the reason for the individuality of the conclusions by looking at their characteristics:
- Light bodily injuries. That causes minor or short-term harm to health. For the most part, these are bruises, abrasions, and bruising. The characteristic of this category is that such damage lasts no more than one week. In other words, it completely heals in seven days.
- Moderate The most massive category. It falls into what cannot be called minor harm, but also severe damage, too. These are injuries that affect the victim (say, his appearance), but do not affect his general, lifelong state of health. Or damage that affects the condition, well-being of a person for a long time. These include fractures, serious burns, punctured and cut wounds that did not affect vital organs.
- Severe damage. This group will not differ in a large number of types of harm caused, but in diversity. The category includes everything that causes severe damage to both physical health and the psyche of the victim. What does it mean? Even if the physical damage is minor, but the psychological injury is serious, the damage will still be classified as severe. The group also includes everything that caused irreparable harm to the health of the victim, led to his disability and death - severe beatings, torture, cut, gunshot, stab wounds, etc.
Analysis of the features of the concept
We also note that “light bodily harm” is already a somewhat outdated term. If you turn to modern legislation, you will notice that it is replaced by "minor harm to health."
In criminal law, the phenomenon has a number of features:
- The harm pursued by punishment is always done by a third party. That is, for example, a person who has decided to cripple himself, to fail to take his own life, will not be judged by Art. 115 of the Criminal Code.
- The action of a third party who violates the law must be intentional.
- The harm caused to the victim by the offender should entail a short-term health disorder so that the attacker is held accountable. This includes disability for a period of at least 3 weeks. Or a larger one, but not exceeding 10% of the total working capacity of the victim.
- In the atrocity must be present intentional actions of the offender.
- The qualification structure of such a crime necessarily determines the degree of complexity of the consequences for the victim. In this case, a medical examination. Here, the intentionality of the action is also revealed - what happened should not be a coincidence.
- The degree of punishment for easy harm is no longer determined by the severity of the damage, but by the level of social danger of the criminal. Therefore, the crime committed by a group of persons, for the sake of political, interethnic, religious purposes, will be punished by the law more severely.
In general, the category of mass offenses against the health of a citizen includes all unlawful acts that were reflected for the victim by certain damage. These actions against the physical condition of a person are considered socially dangerous and involve an encroachment on the well-being of the individual. Therefore, in order to protect the population from violence, such crimes are punishable under the Criminal Code.
Articles of the Criminal Code
In the Russian Criminal Code, intentional injury to health is given a special place. This is ch. 16, which includes twenty articles.
In addition to it, the criminal law contains other sections on the subject of our conversation. In particular, these are articles:
- Art. 115 of the Criminal Code. Dedicated to intentional harm to mild health.
- Art. 112 of the Criminal Code. Damage of moderate severity.
- Art. 111 of the Criminal Code. There will already be bodily injuries recognized by the medical certificate as severe.
Let us dwell in more detail on the article related to the subject of our conversation.
Art. 115 of the Criminal Code, 1 part
Consists of two parts. As we have already said, it is written about the punishment for causing bodily harm - mild and minor.
The first part of the article is devoted to mild health damage, which is not accompanied by aggravating circumstances or other features. Punishment will be provided for the following:
- Arrest for a period of 4 months.
- Correctional work for 1 year.
- Mandatory work lasting 480 hours.
- Cash fine, the maximum amount of which is 40 thousand rubles.
Art. 115 CC, part 2
Now we turn to the second part of the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Inflicting light bodily harm". Cases accompanied by various kinds of aggravating circumstances will already be listed here. The latter include the Criminal Code:
- Damage to the health of the victim for hooligan purposes.
- Causing bodily harm, due to the religious, political and other ideological motives of the criminal.
- Damage to even a mild degree using any weapon.
The term (minor injuries by us is still being considered) under the yoke of aggravating circumstances will be more severe than in the first part:
- Correctional work for 1 year.
- Forced labor for a period of 2 years.
- Restriction of freedom for 2 years.
- Arrest lasting 6 months.
- Imprisonment for up to 2 years.
For whom is no punishment provided?
I must say that the effect of Art. 115 of the Russian Criminal Code does not apply to all categories of citizens. The following persons do not fall under it:
- Minors under 16 years old.
- Persons recognized as incompetent by the court.
Punishment of adolescents 16-18 years old
And what about juvenile delinquents, whose age is 16-18 years? For this category of persons, the punishment for easy harm to the victim’s health will be as follows:
- Registration in the children's room of the police.
- The fine (and other material requirements of the victim) is paid by the parents of the minor offender or his legal representatives.
- At its discretion, the judge may introduce additional penalties - it all depends on aggravating circumstances.
Aggravating circumstance
Deliberate harm to health is rarely a separate crime. Most often on the face are examples when it comes out as an aggravating circumstance.
What is it? Consider examples of causing bodily harm in the context of other atrocities:
- Extortion. As an independent crime, it does not involve harm to the health of the victim. According to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, he is given a maximum of 4 years in prison and 80 thousand rubles as a fine. But if during the commission of this crime the health of the victim was harmed, then the period of imprisonment increases to 15 years, and the fine to 1 million rubles.
- Robbery. Under the Criminal Code, it is an open theft of property without harm. But also Art. 161 of the Russian Criminal Code includes crimes related to causing minor harm to the health of the victim in this category. However, if the latter is recognized by doctors as moderate or severe, then the crime goes into the category of robbery, for which a more severe punishment is imposed.
What to do to the victim?
If you were slightly injured in your health, then in order to bring the guilty person to punishment, you will have to act on your own:
- First, collect all the evidence that confirms his guilt. It is important to timely remove beatings and other injuries in a medical facility, to conduct an examination!
- If possible, collect recordings from surveillance cameras, other audio and photo evidence.
- Find witnesses to the incident.
- After a medical examination, you need to contact the police - write a statement.
- The next stage is a statement already to the judicial authority of the site where the crime was committed. The case is being considered by justices of the peace.
- Remember that you have the right to request compensation for material, moral damage.
The case may end with the reconciliation of the parties. In other cases, a criminal case is instituted under this article (if the malicious intent of the offender is proven) and the offender bears the punishment imposed by the justice of the peace.