The necessary defense and extreme necessity

The necessary defense and extreme necessity in our country belong to those circumstances that completely exclude any crime of the act. In turn, these actions are those targeted actions that are aimed at eliminating a real threat that could harm legal relations protected by law.

The necessary defense is an absolutely legitimate protection of a person's interests and rights, as well as the rights and interests of society, the state or others from dangerous assault by causing harm to the person who is the source of the threat. The limits of the necessary defense can not be violated.

The necessary defense and the conditions for its legitimacy

The encroachment must be:

• Socially dangerous. In this case, it means that it really should be able to cause harm to a person, the state, society and so on;
• In cash. The necessary defense can be used only when the encroachment is clear (started);
• Effective. The necessary defense is applied only against encroachments that exist in objective reality, and not in the mind of the defender.

In the event that one person has harmed another person, having taken an imaginary threat for the obvious, the actions are considered as causing harm through negligence.

Regarding protection:

• A person can protect not only his own interests, but also the interests of other persons, the state, society;
• The necessary defense means harm exclusively to the attacker. Third parties must not suffer;
• Only timely protection is possible;
• The necessary defense has its limits. Their violation is unacceptable.

In this case, excess is understood to be deliberate actions that do not correspond to the degree of danger of a particular assault and its nature. The excess does not include the actions that the person committed because of unexpected encroachment, the degree of danger, and also the nature of which could not be determined.

Extreme need

As well as the necessary defense, it refers to circumstances that exclude the crime of the act.

Under extreme necessity is understood a special state, a person in which, in order to prevent a real danger, harms those interests and rights that are protected by criminal law.

The conditions under which the act of emergency is legitimate can be divided into those that relate to the real danger and those that relate to protection against it.

Conditions that pertain to the hazard:

• To the sources of danger include natural disasters, dangerous behavior of animals or even people, diseases, breakdown of vehicles and mechanisms, and so on. The list in this case is quite wide;
• The danger must directly threaten the objects - that is, be available;
• It must be valid;
• The act of extreme necessity can only be carried out if there is no other obvious possibility to eliminate the danger.

Protection from danger must always meet the requirements:

• Protection must necessarily have a clear goal - that is, it should be used to ensure that no more unpleasant consequences occur;
• Protection can only be timely;
• The limits of extreme necessity must not be exceeded.

Exceeding such limits is also recognized harm, which does not correspond to the nature, as well as the degree of the emerging threat.

The extreme necessity, as well as the necessary defense, exclude the criminality of the act. This primarily means that criminal liability will only occur if it is proved that the harm was deliberate.