Judicial completion: in Russia, the appointment of forced labor will be limited
The circle of people released from forced labor will expand. The Cabinet of Ministers approved amendments that would prohibit the imposition of such a penalty on people with a number of diseases, in particular tuberculosis, diabetes mellitus and cancer. The initiative complements the draft law adopted in the first reading in October 2025. The ban is currently in effect for the disabled of groups I and II, pensioners, children and pregnant women. How the mechanism will work and why it is needed is described in the Izvestia article.
Who needs an exemption from forced labor
In Russia, it will be forbidden to impose punishment in the form of forced labor on people whose illnesses will be included in the list established by the government. Such amendments were approved by the government commission on legislative activity on Tuesday, March 10. This was reported to Izvestia by sources in the Cabinet of Ministers.
Forced labor is an alternative to imprisonment: a convict lives in a correctional center, works, and part of his income is withheld by the state, said Alexey Gavrishev, lawyer and managing partner of AVG Legal.
— In practice, this type of punishment is associated with a real workload and a certain living regime, therefore, for people with serious illnesses, it often turns out to be physically impossible, — the expert noted.
In October 2025, the document was approved in the first reading. As noted in the explanatory note, the project was developed in connection with the report of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova for 2024 sent to the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. It was noted that the absence of their own medical facilities in correctional centers makes the practice of serving sentences there problematic for people with socially significant diseases and in need of constant treatment.
According to the list approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, socially significant diseases include tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, malignant neoplasms, diabetes mellitus, mental disorders, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV.
The amendments clarify the previously considered draft law on amendments to criminal legislation, Vladimir Gruzdev, Chairman of the Board of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, told Izvestia.
"The original idea of the bill is aimed at protecting the most vulnerable category of convicts," he said. — She proposes to release persons suffering from socially significant diseases from forced labor. This is logical, since this type of punishment involves physical labor in isolation, which may be incompatible with the state of health of these individuals, worsen the course of their illness and create risks for others, including other convicts and staff of institutions.
The bill, according to the Chairman of the Board of the AYUR, contains medical criteria that exclude the use of this type of punishment. The amendments propose to replace the reference to the general list of socially significant diseases with a special "list of diseases that exclude the possibility of sentencing in the form of forced labor."
— This change narrows and specifies the scope of the norm, — Vladimir Gruzdev emphasized. — Not every socially significant disease automatically makes a person unable to work. The new approach allows the Government to create a targeted, narrower and more reasonable list of precisely those medical conditions that are objectively incompatible with the regime and conditions of serving forced labor.
The new amendments also propose postponing the date of entry into force of the law in order to prepare a government decree.
What are the risks of forced labor?
The essence of the initiative is to expand the list of categories of people who cannot be sent to forced labor for health reasons, psychologist Maria Todorova added. That is, the penitentiary (penal enforcement) system will be made more humane.
"I assess the proposed restrictions positively, as these diseases can have different, but always negative, effects on health," she said. — Diseases such as tuberculosis, STDs, and HIV are socially dangerous because they can spread in closed groups.
According to the psychologist, knowledge about such diseases can cause deprivation (a negative mental state caused by the inability to meet basic life needs) and a sense of alienation, as the patient may be stigmatized in the team (by assigning negative labels to him, discriminate. — Ed.).
— Right up to the psychological trauma of the convict, — said Maria Todorova. — Malignant tumors, diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension require special supervision, specific medical care, medications, and adherence to a certain daily routine.
Forced labor can cause an exacerbation of these diseases, including irreversible consequences. For example, hypertensive crisis or hypoglycemic coma.
"In this case, the convicted person will not physically perform the required amount of labor," she clarified. — The presence of mental disorders may interfere with their implementation by the patient and the team as a whole. Such people need medical supervision.
Now the legislation actually takes into account the state of health of convicts, Alexey Gavrishev added. For example, Article 60.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation regulates the execution of punishment in the form of forced labor, and also allows for the transfer or release of a convicted person on medical grounds.
— The problem is that the ban on the imposition of such punishment is clearly prescribed only for certain categories: disabled people of groups I and II, pregnant women, minors and pensioners, — he said. — The courts are faced with situations when a person does not formally belong to these categories, but suffers from serious illnesses.
In judicial practice, according to the lawyer, there were cases when convicts were assigned forced labor, but then the execution of the sentence actually became impossible due to their state of health, and they had to review the procedure or release the person on medical grounds.
"From the point of view of criminal policy, this looks illogical: first, a punishment is imposed that is initially difficult to execute, and then the system is forced to adjust it already at the stage of execution," he said.
Therefore, the proposed changes are rather technical and humanistic in nature. Now they are trying to exclude situations in advance when the court appoints a punishment that obviously does not correspond to a person's state of health. As Alexey Gavrishev noted, this simultaneously reduces the burden on the penal enforcement system and eliminates legal uncertainty when the issue was actually transferred from the court to the medical commissions after the verdict.
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