Legal responsibility and punishment: the problem of correlation

The article analyzes the problem of the correlation of legal responsibility and punishment. The reasons that determine the diversity of approaches to the relationship of the concepts under consideration are revealed. Based on a number of methodological prerequisites (certainty in the understanding of the categories being compared, the inadmissibility of considering legal liability in isolation from other, basic categories of legal science and, above all, state coercion, the need to distinguish between the concepts of “bringing to legal responsibility” (“sentencing”) and “implementation of legal responsibility” (“implementation (serving, execution) punishment”), justifies the conclusion, that the concept of “legal responsibility” in its traditional (retrospectively negative) understanding as a measure of adverse consequences, appointed by an authorized legal entity in a special procedural order for an offense committed, is identical to the concept of “punishment”.

legal responsibility, punishment, conviction, state coercion, protective measures, preventive measures, other criminal law measures, compulsory medical measures