Caution forest
This crime infringes upon public relations ensuring the safe state of the fauna. Thus, non-compliance with the rules for the movement (transportation) or butchering of wild animals can lead to the spread of contagious animal diseases and create an unfavorable sanitary and epidemiological situation. Furthermore, the said article allows for the punishment of poachers who, due to lack of evidence and the argument "we just picked up the carcass, but did not kill it," previously got away with killing animals.
This is the kind of regulation that helped bring many criminals to light, but as they say, if light is born somewhere, then shadow is born somewhere else.
So, on a cold March day in 2016, citizen N. and his cohabitant K. were walking in a forest area. Almost at the exit of the forest, they discovered a partially decomposed carcass of an animal (a European roe deer) eaten by predators, from which citizen N. cut off the front left leg with a knife to feed his dog. After that, he and his cohabitant were detained by an employee of the inter-district inspection for the protection of fauna and flora and a gamekeeper of the local forestry enterprise.
The inter-district inspection submitted to the territorial Internal Affairs Directorate a calculation of the damage caused to the environment as a result of the illegal extraction of a European roe deer in the hunting grounds of the forestry enterprise in the amount of 120 B.V. or 25,200,000 non-denominated rubles, as well as a calculation of the cost of the illegally butchered European roe deer in the amount of 22 B.V. or 4,620,000 non-denominated rubles. At the same time, the damage of 120 B.V. is sufficient to bring a person to criminal responsibility, even without administrative prejudice.
Many readers will surely ask the question: why are two cost calculations presented for one carcass and where does such a cost come from for a piece of rotten meat? For what will citizen N. be brought to criminal responsibility?!
To begin with, I will provide
note to Article 282-1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, which states "illegal movement (transportation) or butchering in this article are recognized as committed in a large size if the cost of a wild animal is one hundred or more times the size of the basic unit, established on the day of the commission of the crime, and in an especially large size - two hundred and fifty or more times the size of such basic unit. The cost of illegally moved (transported) or butchered wild animals, including dead ones, or their parts is determined in the manner established for determining the amount of damage caused as a result of their illegal seizure."
Thus, the prohibition of movement and butchering of dead animals or their parts is mentioned both in the disposition of the article and in the note to it. But I did not answer about the amount of damage, how it was determined. Only questions of cost remained...
In environmental legislation, the following concepts should be distinguished: 1. Damage caused to the environment and 2. Illegally obtained products from the use of wildlife objects. In simple terms, the first is the damage caused to the environment as a result of the seizure of an animal, and the second is the actual damage to the owner of the forest, in this case, the forestry enterprise.
To establish the damage caused to the environment, it is necessary to refer to the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus of 17.07.2008 No. 1042 "On approval of the Regulation on the procedure for calculating the amount of compensation for damage caused to the environment, and the compilation of an act on establishing the fact of damage to the environment, amending and repealing some resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus". Thus, paragraph 7 of the aforementioned resolution states that the amount of compensation for damage caused to the environment is calculated as follows: Damage = tariff rate, established by Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus of December 8, 2005 No. 580 (the cost of a European roe deer is measured in specimens and is equal to 120 B.V.) multiplied by the quantitative indicator (one
instance) multiplied by the corresponding coefficient (in this case, one) and multiplied by the value of the basic unit established on the date of the act of establishing the fact of damage to the environment (at that time, 210,000 Belarusian rubles).Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus of 29.07.2011 No. 1022 "On approval of the Regulation on the procedure for determining the cost of illegally obtained products of wildlife use" establishes the procedure for determining the cost of illegally obtained products of wildlife use, which is recovered in case of impossibility of its seizure or impossibility of selling the seized illegally obtained products of wildlife use or economic inexpediency of selling such products. This cost is determined as follows: Cost = quantity of illegally obtained products (one instance) multiplied by the cost of 1 instance (1 kilogram) of illegally obtained products, according to the appendix to this Regulation (trophy roe deer costs 22 B.U.) multiplied by the value of the basic unit in effect on the day of establishing the fact of illegal extraction (at that time, 210,000 Belarusian rubles).
Based on the foregoing, a criminal case was lawfully initiated against citizen N. in accordance with the current legislation. However, I hope that people who read this article will refrain from touching fallen wild animals themselves and will warn their friends and acquaintances about this, which will prevent similar situations in the future.
Prosecutor of the Department
for supervision of inquiries
2nd class lawyer Nikolai Nevmerzhitsky