THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTIONALITY AND LIABILITY FOR THE COMMISSION OF SECRET THEFT OF FUNDS FROM A BANK ACCOUNT

The principle of proportionality is one of the principles of criminal law, which suggests that the punishment must correspond to the severity of the act committed. However, establishing criteria that ensure the material content of the criminal law can be a complex process, given the constitutional and legal basis underlying the implementation of this principle. The study is devoted to bringing to criminal liability for committing a crime under paragraph «g» of Part 3 of Art. 158 of the Criminal Code, considers various methods of theft and their distinction. The author assesses the counteraction to the secret theft of funds in a bank account, taking into account the ratio of public danger and punishability of the act. The article provides a legal analysis of theft from a bank account in the context of the proportionality of acts and the category of crime established by criminal law. The additions proposed by the author to Part 2 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, allow to avoid an expanded interpretation and to qualify theft using the victim’s plastic card as a crime of medium gravity. The proposal is intented to specify the concept of counteracting theft from a bank account, to give grounds for reflection on how much the current state of the law corresponds to the principles that provide a common system of coordinates in criminal law regulation. As a consequence of the proposed changes, the author sees in the increase in the number of criminal cases considered in a special procedure of legal proceedings, the conduct of criminal proceedings without unjustified red tape with the provision of constitutional guarantees to participants in the criminal process.