Execution of Punishment

the legal action by which the basic order of a court judgment of guilty is implemented. It is carried out by the state agencies charged with the execution of judicial judgments. The concept of execution of punishment was introduced in the Basic Principles of Correctional Labor Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics of 1969 (part 1, art. 2). This legislation provides that the agencies for the execution of punishment in the form of deprivation of freedom shall be the correctional labor institutions; militia agencies (exile and banishment) and correctional labor departments and inspectorates (correctional labor without deprivation of freedom) are charged with the execution of other kinds of punishment. The procedure and conditions for the execution of punishment, determined by the court, are regulated, together with the basic principles of correctional labor legislation, by the correctional labor codes of the Union republics. The execution of punishment in the form of assigning a convicted serviceman to a disciplinary battalion is carried out in accordance with a special all-Union law.

A distinction should be made between the execution of punishment and the execution of judgment, a much broader concept that presupposes the performance by a court or other competent agency of a number of legal actions connected with the carrying out of the court’s decrees, for example, distributing copies of the judgment and deciding on questions related to the keeping of evidence concerning a case. The term “execution of judgment” in a broad sense also includes the execution of punishment.