Parliamentarians of Kabardino-Balkaria suggested to legitimate snitching on one's close relatives

The Parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria has introduced a law in draft to the State Duma suggesting to cancel the clause of the Criminal code of the Russian Federation according to which a citizen is exempted from liability "for concealment of a crime committed by his of her spouse or close relative not promised beforehand". 

The bill introduced by KBR was referred to the Committee of Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation of the State Duma on April, 12. The text of the law in draft and an explanatory note on it were published at the web-site of the lower chamber. 

The bill suggests to remove the note according to which a citizen is exempted from criminal liability for non- snitching on his or her close relatives from clause 316 of the Criminal code of the Russian Federation ("Concealment of crimes"). 

The Kabardino-Balkarian parliamentarians considered that the note to clause 316 was an "imperfect" one for "the objective aspect of concealment not promised beforehand should be interpreted much broader, i.e. as hiding criminals, criminal instruments, traces of a crime and objects obtained by means of a crime". 

Besides, the parliamentarians of KBR suggested to supplement the Criminal code with clause 316.1 ("Failure to report a crime"). According to the introduced regulation, the deputies are planning to enact custody for a term of up to five years for failure to report grave and high crimes committed or at the stage of preparation. There are no reserves concerning relatives and spouses in the new clause.

In the opinion of the authors of the amendments to the Criminal code, criminal penalty had been stipulated by all the previous criminal codes. "The Criminal code of the Russian Federation in force does not stipulate criminal liability for this sort of acts in this way interrupting historical succession to previous criminal legislations of Russia", the text of the draft runs. 

The Committee of the State Duma has not expressed its expert opinion on this initiative yet.