. Imperfections of criminal legislation make fighting crime less effective.

Abstract: Criminal legal policy of any state should strive to strike a right type of balance between an effective control of a state and ensuring the rights and freedoms of any individual. Do the changes, which are brought into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, help to achieve such balance, or rather the contrary? In Professor Ilyichev’s article one may find critical analysis of the measures taken to “soften” Russian criminal law, namely, amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.