Ar egzistuoja baudžiamosios ir civilinės atsakomybės atribojimo kriterijai už turtinių įsipareigojimų nevykdymą versle?

Abstract

Turtiniai įsipareigojimai yra civilinės prievolės. Prievolė – civilinis teisinis santykis, kurio viena šalis privalo atlikti kitos šalies naudai tam tikrą veiksmą ar susilaikyti nuo tam tikro veiksmo atlikimo, o šalis, kurios naudai prievolė atliekama, turi teisę reikalauti iš kitos šalies, kad ši įvykdytų savo pareigą. Dažniausiai prievolės įgyjamos civilinių sutarčių pagrindu. Asmeniui neįvykdžius ar vykdant prievolę tik dalinai (vengiant visiško įvykdymo), gali kilti civilinė arba civilinė ir baudžiamoji atsakomybė (LR BK 179, 182, 186 str.). Remiantis sutarties laisvės principu įtvirtintu civiliniame kodekse, asmenys turi teisę laisvai sudaryti sutartis, kurių pagrindu įgyjamos įvairių rūšių prievolės. Įprastam įsipareigojimų nevykdymui, paprastai naudotini civilinės teisės mechanizmai ir taikytina civilinė atsakomybė. Kartais šio mechanizmo priemonės dėl sąmoningų prievolininko veiksmų tampa neefektyvios, neperspektyvios ar praktiškai neįgyvendinamos. Tokiu atveju spręstina dėl baudžiamojo proceso priemonių ir baudžiamosios atsakomybės taikymo, kaip papildomos, pagalbinės priemonės šalia civilinės atsakomybės, siekiant apginti pažeistas teises. Baudžiamosios atsakomybės paskirtis yra užkardinti pačias pavojingiausias nusikalstamas veikas. Dėl šios priežasties, tokia atsakomybės rūšis daugumoje teisinių valstybių laikytina ultima ratio priemone, t. y. priemone, kuri pasitelktina paskutine, kai kitos tampa neefektyvios. Kaip teisingai pastebi teisės mokslininkas Oleg Fedosiuk, baudžiamoji teisė yra išplėtusi savo reguliavimo apimtis tiek, jog savo jurisdikcijai priskiria kai kuriuos piktnaudžiavimus sutartiniuose santykiuose. Pagrindiniu baudžiamosios ir civilinės atsakomybės atribojimo kriterijumi laikoma apgaulė, kuriai savo ruožtu keliami papildomi standartai. Tik apgaulė, kaip nusikalstamos veikos būdas, atitinkanti visus teismų praktikoje keliamus reikalavimus gali būti sukčiavimo sudėties elementu. Paprastai bandant išvengti turtinių prievolių vykdymo, sukčiavimas atliekamas pasitelkiant vieną iš apgaulės formų – piktnaudžiavimą pasitikėjimu. Piktnaudžiavimas pasitikėjimu tarp verslininkų gali būti nustatomas tik esant išimtiniams atvejams. Šis išimtinumas sietinas su verslininkų išskirtinėmis verslo organizavimo žiniomis, patirtimi, kadangi tokiems asmenims turi būti keliami aukštesni atidaus, rūpestingo ir protingo nukentėjusiojo elgesio standartai.

The property obligations are civil duties. According to the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania, obligation is a civil legal relation, when one party has to perform certain action or sustain from certain action for the benefit of another party, and the party, for whose benefit the obligation is executed, has a right to demand execution of the obligation from the other party. Usually the obligations are acquired on the ground of civil contracts. If the person does not implement the obligation or implements it partially (avoid full implementation), the civil or criminal liability may arise (articles 179, 182, 186 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania. In order to analyze deeper, only the criminal liability arising from the article 182 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania is discussed in this scientific study). According to the principle of freedom of contract consolidated in the Civil Code, the persons are free to conclude the contracts, on the ground of which various obligations are acquired. The possibility to make freely the agreements and to acquire obligations on their ground is one of the most necessary guarantees in order to ensure proper functioning of business and to induce competitiveness of domestic economy. Usually the business encounters constant risk, which is not always as expected. The non-justified risk causes negative consequences not only to other undertakings (competitors), but also to business partners, national economy and society. The mechanisms of civil law are usually applicable for ordinary non-implementation of obligations, and civil liability is applied. Sometimes these means become ineffective, prospectless and impracticable due to deliberate actions of the obligation holder. In such a way the issue of means of criminal proceedings and criminal liability have to be considered. These are additional, auxiliary means (in addition to civil liability) used to defend the violated rights. The purpose of criminal liability is to prevent the most dangerous criminal activities. Therefore such liability is considered as an ultima ratio tool in many countries, i.e. the tool used the last when other means are ineffective. As legal scientist Oleg Fedosiuk has noticed correctly, criminal law has expanded its regulation scopes in such a way as to attribute certain cases of misuse to its jurisdiction. So the tendency is noticed that the number of disputes between the businessmen arising from civil legal relations is growing, but the criminal legal means are applied to solve them. The means of criminal procedure grant certain advantages to the victim and become an especially attractive tool for dispute settlement within the context of criminal jurisdiction. When the legal scientist Aurelijus Gutauskas was analyzing disputes of businessmen in his scientific study, he noticed that the “criminal business law” is occupying stronger and stronger position in modern law. Therefore the potential threat arises that the application of too strict measures to solve the disputes between the businessmen would cause damage to the initiative of businessmen and domestic economy, as well. These circumstances determine natural need for drawing the line between unjustified risk and criminal liability in business relations because the divide is really unclear at present. The main criterion separating criminal and civil liabilities is fraud, for which additional standards determined in case law or resulting from legal doctrine are set. Only the fraud as the mode of criminal activity that satisfies all the requirements of case law and legal doctrine may be considered a suitable element of swindle’s structure. Usually in order to avoid implementation of property obligations, swindle is performed with the help of one of the fraud’s forms – breach of trust. Although the swindle norm consolidated in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania has been always causing numerous discussions, but its consolidation in the Lithuanian case law has brought additional confusion and uncertainty in attempt to separate properly the non-implementation of property obligations from criminal activities. Due to the peculiarities of swindle’s content and fraud’s forms, the problem of this work remains relevant only for the Lithuanian science of law. The opinion is formed in the Lithuanian case law that the breach of trust among the businessmen may be determined only in exceptional cases. This exclusivity is related to exceptional knowledge of business organization and experience of businessmen, because higher standards of cautious, careful and reasonable behaviour should be set for such persons. However such motivation of case law raises reasonable doubts whether the relations between the businessmen are so specific as to form the legal rule exclusively for business relations. The modern law still lacks the unanimous standard that could define “business” concept and forms of business performance. Therefore there is no doubt that the legal rule of separation formed in case law should not be so specific and it should be directed towards more universal application possibilities.