Russia’s justice minister has proposed introducing “the defense of moral values” as a new basis for exemption from criminal liability. Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, Konstantin Chuychenko said, “Currently, individuals can be exempted if they acted out of extreme necessity or in self-defense. But what if someone was defending moral values?”

As examples of when such a “third ground for exemption” might apply, Chuychenko cited the actions of Russians in the Kursk region, parts of which were temporarily occupied by Ukrainian forces, and a father who killed a man for allegedly raped his young daughter. “Nationalists entered Kursk. Many local residents defended their loved ones and their property — and, naturally, they killed,” he said. “Nobody really questions whether those killings were lawful”

“Morality must be embodied in the law, and the law must be deeply moral,” Chuychenko continued. “At present, our Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes define justice solely as the proportionality of punishment to the offense”

Earlier at the same forum, Chuychenko asserted that strengthening Russian statehood should take precedence over protecting individual rights and upholding the rule of law. He also described the Decembrists — the liberal military officers and political dissidents who led a failed uprising against the Russian Empire in 1825 — as “agents of foreign influence,” and argued that the “liberal” monarchy had punished them too leniently. (Most Decembrists were executed or exiled to Siberia)