Ostanina proposed reinstating criminal penalties for first-time domestic battery.
State Duma deputy Nina Ostanina offers revise the law, according to which criminal liability for beating loved ones only applies for repeat offenses. She appealed to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court To Igor Krasnov with a request to consider the issue of returning criminal liability for the first assaults against close persons.
“The first manifestation of violence often remains without an adequate criminal-legal response, although it is precisely at the early stage that state intervention can interrupt the escalation of the conflict and protect the victim,” Nina Ostanina noted.
It She recalled that previously, even those who committed violence for the first time were sent to prison. However, in 2017, this provision was abolished, limiting the punishment to administrative penalties.
"In 2017, it was the Communist Party of the Russian Federation that warned that transferring the first offenses of domestic battery from the Criminal Code to the Code of Administrative Offenses could lead to a sense of impunity and an increase in domestic violence. Back then, we were ignored," explains the deputy.
Ostanina requested data from relevant agencies on the number of administrative and criminal cases, repeat incidents of violence, refusals to initiate cases, the work of crisis centers, and the victim assistance system.
According to her data, last year the All-Russian Women's Helpline received almost 24 calls; the average age of victims was 30–40 years old, and most had children.
It is noteworthy that just a few weeks ago Ostanina was expressed against the adoption of the law on domestic violence, which, in her opinion, will discourage young people from getting married. And filed a to court against a deputy from the New People party Ksenia Goryacheva, who disagreed with her position and asked the question: "A thousand dead women a year at the hands of their husbands is less of a problem than a hypothetical thousand unmarried couples?"
