THE POTENTIAL OF CRIMINAL LAW IN PROTECTING LABOR RIGHTS OF CITIZENS (USING THE EXAMPLE OF ARTICLE 136 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION)

The relevance of the study is based, on the one hand, on high public danger of crimes in the sphere of labor relations and, on the other hand, on a very low interest of law enforcement, control and supervision bodies in these crimes. The authors show that modern criminal legislation in the sphere of protecting labor rights has a high potential in comparison with both Soviet and foreign criminal law norms. At the same time, this potential, primarily expressed in Chapter 19 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, remains untapped. Many norms, including Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Violating the Equality of Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen", are virtually never used against discrimination in the labor sphere, although such discrimination is quite common. No such cases have been found in court statistical data, thus it is impossible to provide a comprehensive criminological description of these crimes. The norm of Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is seldom used by law enforcers because it is legally ambiguous. In this connection the authors suggest complementing the disposition of Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with such factors of discrimination as "age" and "marital status". The latter factor will make it possible to provide extra protection to pregnant women and women with children under three years old against unmotivated refusal of employment and firing. The authors argue that such actions of the employer should constitute an aggregate of crimes and should be punished simultaneously under Art. 136 and 145 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the authors think that it is not appropriate to make the disposition of Art. 136 a blanket one due to vague grounds for discrimination in special legislation, including labor legislation. The obtained results could be used for the improvement of Russian legislation based on theoretical research and the practice of law enforcement.