Under the chairmanship of Farhad Abdullayev, the Plenum of the Constitutional Court held its next session on January 23.
Modern.az reports that, according to information from the press service of the Constitutional Court, at the session, a decision was adopted based on the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan regarding the joint interpretation of Article 14.2 (minor acts) and Article 228.1 (illegal circulation of weapons and ammunition) of the Criminal Code from the perspective of Article 80 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The decision notes that, according to Article 14.2 of the Criminal Code, even if an act has the formal characteristics of a crime, if that act is of minor significance and does not pose a real danger to society, it is not considered a crime. That is, acts that do not cause harm to an individual, society, or the state, or do not pose such a risk of harm, do not entail criminal liability.
The Constitutional Court emphasizes in its Decision that by “minor act,” behaviors lacking the characteristic of public danger are meant, and such acts are not included in the concept of a crime by their nature.
At the same time, it is noted that the concept of “minor significance” is evaluative in nature. That is, in each specific case, determining whether an act is of minor significance falls within the competence of law enforcement agencies – investigation, prosecution, and courts. When conducting this evaluation, all factual circumstances of the case must be thoroughly investigated, and the target of the act, the object it was directed at, the conditions under which it was committed, and the perpetrator's intent must be taken into account.
The Decision also pays special attention to Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code. According to that article, the illegal acquisition, storage, transportation, transfer to another person, or carrying of firearms, their parts, ammunition, explosives, and devices entails criminal liability (with the exception of smoothbore hunting weapons and their ammunition).
The Constitutional Court notes that no minimum threshold for the specific number of ammunition for criminal liability under this article has been established in law. The reason for this is that ammunition possesses varying degrees of danger, and even a single usable cartridge has the potential to pose a serious threat to human life and health.
The Plenum of the Constitutional Court considers that, since the characteristic of “minor significance” is evaluative in nature, whether the act specified in Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code is of minor significance is determined by law enforcement agencies based on the factual circumstances of each case. In this regard, the quantitative indicator of ammunition (number of cartridges) should be evaluated only in conjunction with other indicators that allow for determining the public danger of the offense (motive, purpose, place, time, circumstances of the act, etc.).
