Deprivation of the Right to Hold Certain Offices

(or to engage in certain activity), in Soviet criminal law, a type of punishment which consists in depriving the convicted person of the right to occupy offices specifically indicated in the judgment or to engage in a certain activity for a term specified by the court (not more than five years). The minimum term of this measure of punishment is established by the criminal law of the Union republics. In the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (art. 29) and in the criminal codes of most of the other Union republics the minimum is one year.

This punishment is assigned by the court in instances where, because of the nature of the crime committed by the guilty person, he cannot continue to work in his previous position (for example, Article 116 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR states that a doctor who performs an illegal abortion may be sentenced to deprivation of freedom or to deprivation of the right to practice medicine). Deprivation of these rights may be assigned as a basic or supplementary punishment. If deprivation of a right is assigned as supplementary to some other basic punishment (for example, corrective labor without deprivation of freedom) the term is calculated from the moment the basic punishment begins to be served.