Article 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Disclosure of the secret of adoption

In a family, the desire to have a child is natural. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds in this.

Today the problem of infertility is very acute. Some families cannot get pregnant due to problems with men's or women's health, others cannot bear it, and others simply want many children in the family.

Regardless of their motives, each of them has the right to adopt abandoned children. Few people know that the secret of adoption is protected by law, and its disclosure is a criminal offense.

Disclosure of the secret of adoption under Art. 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is a special norm to Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for the protection of privacy. What awaits those who violate this norm, and how to keep the adoption secret, we will tell you in this article.

At what point does the mystery of adoption arise?

The secrecy of adoption does not have a strictly regulated definition, but it is protected by many legislative acts.

This is only the information that should be hidden from outsiders. And those people who, due to their official position or involvement in a particular family, received this information are obliged to keep it secret.

The secrecy of adoption arises from the moment all adoption documents are signed. Either this decision is announced by the judge, or the documents are filled out by guardianship and trusteeship employees. This all depends on the specific adoption situation.

Only a child who is recognized as an orphan according to documents can be adopted.

Documented orphans can be:

• Children whose parents died;
• Children whose parents have been deprived of parental rights;
• Children whose parents have formalized their abandonment.

When a mother and father die, minor children are first offered for adoption by close relatives: grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult sisters, brothers.

Only after these categories of potential adoptive parents refuse to take the children can the children be adopted by outsiders.

There are special databases for orphans in which their records are kept. Potential parents who wish to adopt abandoned children are also entered into separate databases.

Motives for protecting secrets

Why is the secret of adoption such valuable information, the disclosure of which is strictly prohibited? Because it falls into the category of personal and family secrets.

Many parents who have adopted a child move to live in another city to avoid unnecessary gossip from others.

Maintaining the secrecy of adoption is a right for parents, and an obligation for outsiders.

Maintaining secrecy is based on many principles:

• Creating comfortable psychological conditions for the child;
• Protecting the family from excessive attention;
• For religious or ethical reasons.

When a child learns the secret of his adoption at an early psychologically fragile age, this can lead to serious consequences.

Regulatory basis for the secrecy of adoption

Family life and, especially, family secrets in our society are sacredly revered and protected. There is even a special set of laws for this called the Family Code.

The regulatory framework regarding the protection of the secrecy of adoption is as follows:

• Constitution of the Russian Federation – Art. 23 guarantees personal and family privacy.
• European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights – Art. 8 protects the right to respect for family life.
• Family Code – Art. 139 prohibits the disclosure of family secrets of adoption.
• Criminal Code – Art. 155 determines the amount of punishment for violating the inviolability of the secrecy of adoption.
• The Resolution of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated April 20, 2006 regulates the general procedure for adoption.

Art. 139 of the RF IC indicates that only persons who divulge the secret of adoption against the will of the adoptive parents are subject to liability.

Law on the secrecy of adoption in Russia - subjects and responsible parties

The secrecy of the adoption of minor citizens is protected by law in Russia.

Disclosure of information relating to the adoption of children may cause moral suffering, or interfere with the creation of a normal family environment. And even in some cases, it can complicate the process of raising a child.

The secret of adoption refers to the facts and information about adoption. The secrecy of adoption begins to exist immediately after the court makes a decision. All persons involved in the procedure for preparing and executing the adoption are required to maintain the secrecy of the adoption .

All responsible officials who must maintain confidentiality:

1. Judges, judicial workers.
2. Officials who registered the minor in the registry office.
3. Guardianship workers.
4. Employees of the orphanage where the child was located before adoption.
5. Other persons aware of the adoption. For example, educators, teachers, teachers of children's institutions.

Relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances of the adoptive parents will also be responsible for disclosure .

Moreover, a spouse who divulges the secret of adoption against the will of the second spouse can be brought to justice.

All of the above persons can act as subjects of this crime. Thus, the subject of the crime in this case is a person obliged to keep the fact of adoption as an official or professional secret, as well as any other person who meets the requirements of the general subject, acting for selfish or other base motives.

Important: All citizens - officials and individuals - can receive punishment for spreading the secret of adoption.

The adoption process is carried out on the basis of the following legal acts:

1. Article 127 of the RF IC lists persons who can act as adoptive parents.
2. Article 128 of the RF IC states that there must be an age difference between the adoptive parents and the adopted child - at least 16 years. A stepfather or stepmother can take care of a child without an age limit.
3. Articles 129, 133 of the RF IC speak about the consent of both parents to the adoption of a child.
4. Article 130 of the RF IC. It lists cases where consent to adoption is not required.
5. Article 132 of the RF IC indicates that the consent of the child himself is required if he is over 10 years old.
6. Articles 134, 135 of the RF IC speak about the rights to change the initials and date of birth of a child.
7. Article 136 of the RF IC states that guardians can be registered as parents of an adopted child.
8. Article 137 of the RF IC on the legal consequences of adoption.
9. Article 139 of the RF IC fixes the safety and non-disclosure of the secrecy of adoption.

You can rely on these articles when drawing up a statement of claim in court to bring to justice the citizen who violated the secrecy of adoption.

The corpus delicti under Art. 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

In order for the crime to be qualified under Art. 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it is necessary that information about adoption goes beyond the circle of people who are aware of it.

Simply put, if a guardianship employee wrote a letter about an adopted child to a PDN employee who already knows her, this will not be considered a crime.

The crime is as follows:

• The object of the criminal act is private, family secrets, the interests of parents and children.
• The objective side involves disclosing the secret to at least one person, including the adopted child himself. The main feature is the lack of consent of the adoptive parents to this act. Often the threat of disclosing a secret becomes associated with extortion, which will be qualified in conjunction with other articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
• Direct intent characterizes the subjective side. The person committing the crime is aware that he has no right to do so, but still acts in a certain way.
• The subject of a crime can be a person over 16 years of age. A common subject in the form of teachers, educators and other persons divulges the secret for selfish or other base motives. The special subjects are judges, guardianship and trusteeship officers.

It will not be recognized as a criminal offense to disclose the secret of adoption by the adoptive parents themselves or other persons at their request.

All participants in the judicial process, in which issues related to adoption are considered, must be warned about the prohibition of disclosing the secret of adoption and the possibility of bringing them to criminal liability in the event of disclosure.

All court hearings considering adoption issues are held behind closed doors.

Composition of a criminal offense

The composition of a criminal act includes the subjective and objective side, the subject and object of the crime.

• Subject

The subject can be special or general. The first include persons whose professional duties involve maintaining secrecy (a judge, the director of a shelter, an employee of the registry office), and the second include any persons who disclosed information for selfish or malicious purposes: relatives, neighbors, teachers and other citizens, more or less closely communicating with family.

• Subjective side

It represents the dissemination of information against the will of the adoptive parent. A crime is such only if there is intent. For example, one of the relatives may blackmail the couple by telling the child who his true mother and father are, demanding money for silence. In this case, if the secret is revealed, he is the culprit and deserves criminal punishment. There is evidence of the criminal’s interest, selfish intent (to get money and ruin family relationships) and the act itself.

If the parents gave the go-ahead for the disclosure of the secret, or the child was already aware that he was taken into care, the fact of disclosure is not regarded as a crime. It doesn’t matter whether the parents themselves told the child or someone else with their consent, there is no corpus delicti.

Dissemination of information against the will of the adoptive parent

• An object

The object of the crime is social relations that were violated by someone’s illegal actions. Human rights and freedoms are considered a common object. The generic object is the rights of the individual, the specific object is the rights of minors. And the immediate object is the right of children to grow up and be educated in a full-fledged family and in a psychologically comfortable environment. Dissemination of information can be a direct threat to the child’s peace of mind and a way to disrupt family relationships.

• Objective side

The objective side is actions aimed at revealing the secret of adoption to at least one person, including the child himself. The crime differs in its formal composition - that is, it is considered committed from the moment the information was disclosed.

Responsibility for disclosing the secret of adoption

Responsibility provided for in Art. 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, applies to the following categories of persons:

• Persons obliged to keep the fact of adoption as an official or professional secret;
• Other persons who divulge secrets for selfish or base motives.

For this crime, the legislator establishes several punishment options:

• Fine up to 80 thousand rubles;
• Fine in the amount of the convicted person's income for up to 6 months;
• Mandatory work up to 360 hours;
• Correctional labor for up to 1 year;
• Arrest up to 4 months.

As an additional punishment to arrest, deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or conduct certain activities for a period of up to 3 years may be applied. This will be either judicial work or teaching.

Law violation

The reasons for disclosing the secret of adoption can be different, so it makes sense to familiarize yourself with the motivating motives.

Necessity of disclosure

It is necessary to maintain secrecy when adopting children under 10 years of age.
In cases where older children are involved, storing information related to adoption is often pointless: the child remembers the procedure and can remember his real parents. In such situations, adoptive parents may well acquaint the child with the details of adoption. When disclosing information to third parties, the permission of the adoptive parents remains a mandatory condition.

Premeditated acts

If an offense is committed by a person who is not obliged to keep a secret, the motive usually becomes self-interest or base motives. When information is disclosed by a person obliged to maintain official secrets, criminal penalties are imposed regardless of the reasons that prompted the commission of the unlawful act.

How to prove disclosure of secrets?

If someone commits an episode of disclosing family secrets of adoption, you must immediately file a complaint with law enforcement agencies. This is a criminal offense and the offender must face criminal liability.

Here's what you need to do to assert your right to privacy:

• Collect a package of documents to submit to the police along with the application. The documents must include evidence of how the disclosure was made. This could be letters, printouts of emails, audio recordings of calls.
• When the secret has become accessible to the child, you need to seek help from a psychologist. The child may need psychological help and support. And the parents, having collected all the checks for the psychologist’s payment, will subsequently demand compensation from the court for damages.
• In a separate civil procedure or as part of a criminal case, it is necessary to file a claim for compensation for moral damages. The court will need to prove that the disclosure of the secret of adoption caused a serious psychological and moral blow to the child and parents.

Separately, it will be necessary to prove the self-interest of the offender’s motive or base motives. It is not simple. Therefore, it is better to seek help from experienced lawyers.

Methods of proving that the secrecy of adoption was violated

In order to bring the perpetrator to justice, it is necessary to provide evidence to the court. For example, testimony of witnesses, documents (threats, receipts, etc.), videos and photos, recordings of telephone conversations, voice messages, printouts of correspondence in instant messengers or mail, testimony of a child who was told the truth.

The difficulty is to identify the subject who told the secret - the child can be told by a person he does not know, and therefore he will not be able to explain to his parents who exactly it was. Naturally, obstacles to identification are created.

It is extremely difficult to bring so-called “well-wishers” to justice, because to constitute a crime it is necessary that they have base motives - revenge, hatred, lust for money, etc. It is difficult to prove such feelings, because they are expressed intangibly, intuitively, at the level of relationships, not documents. It is much easier in the case of extortion, because the criminal needs to maintain contact with the targets of blackmail - call, write, leave threats and have access to the child in order to tell him the truth. In this case, the evidence will be printouts of telephone conversations or correspondence.

An important point: disclosing information about adoption to those persons who are required by profession to keep secrets is not a crime. It is impossible to hold accountable a teacher who, at the request of the court, gave out information about a child, providing information that he is not by blood.

Methods of proving that the secrecy of adoption was violated

Judicial practice in 2021

Most often, according to Art. 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, other persons are involved - relatives, friends, strangers. Persons holding positions in courts, guardianship and trusteeship bodies are subject to liability much less frequently.

This is due to the fact that the latter are more aware of the consequences of such actions and value their official position.

Disclosure of the secret of adoption, as a rule, is addressed specifically to the child . Other people are most often not told such information simply because it is of no value to them.

Particularly difficult in practice is the issue of proving the selfish motives of violators or their base motives.

The Resolution of the Plenum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation No. 56 “On judicial practice in cases of extortion” explains that vile actions that disgrace the victim should be understood as the following behavior:

• Actions discrediting honor and dignity, undermining reputation;
• Knowingly false reports;
• Reports made for the purpose of profit;
• Disclosure of information that negatively affects the psychological and moral state of the victim, etc.

The secrets of adoption are information that should not concern anyone other than two family members who have decided to raise someone else’s child. Gossip against the backdrop of the secrecy of adoption is unacceptable and punishable.

This is not just an excuse to talk and discuss the personal family life of other people, it is a violation of criminal law, an unacceptable action that reflects the low culture of the offender and is subject to real punishment.

What is it for

It is important to understand that disclosing the secret of adoption is fraught with the development of a negative atmosphere in the family, which can lead to divorce of spouses, cancellation of adoption or unlawful actions on the part of members of the family union. . Contrary to the Conventions on the Rights of Children, which opposes concealing the fact of adoption, as this is contrary to human rights

Contrary to the Conventions on the Rights of Children, which opposes concealing the fact of adoption, as this is contrary to human rights.

The secrecy of adoption can entail moral and legal problems, therefore in Russia a decision has been made on its non-disclosure in order to neutralize the threat of these problems arising.

The following procedures are also kept secret:

• protection from attempts to take the baby away from the foster family by his blood relatives;
• ensuring a comfortable climate in the family, relationships based on mutual understanding and love;
• protection from mental and moral ill-health of children in foster families, since often the news of the absence of family ties among family members can cause irreparable damage to the mental health of the child;
• protection from blackmail from third parties who exert pressure under the pretext of disclosing secrets;
• responsibility for disclosing the secret of adoption provides protection from the provision of information about the adoptive parents to the child’s biological parents, who “in time” came to their senses about their involvement in raising the child.

Modern trends in glasnost give the right to assume that, following the example of the West, the secrecy of adoption and the threat of its disclosure will soon be abolished in Russia. This measure will eliminate all obstacles to finding blood relatives if necessary.