The article considers particularities of Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation’ lawmaking related to issues of criminal law. The Court’s work, as seen by normativism theory, applies constitutional norms and creates instructions for criminal law, thereby merging constitutional and the sphere-specific levels of regulation. Constitutional judicial lawmaking does not substitute parliamentary lawmaking since the latter makes policy decisions in the criminal law sphere, thus defining optimal content of criminal law norms. Acts of constitutional justice seek to constitutionalize criminal law by way of eliminating its contradictions with constitutional requirements. According to their content, these acts are based on disclosing constitutional boundaries within which the will of the criminal law-maker exercises discretion. Constitutionality of criminal norm represents the statement of non-breach of constitutional boundaries set for criminal law which is not the same as the norms’ criminal and political reasonableness conditioning the permanent modernization of this sphere. Lawmaking performed in connection with constitutional judicial assessment of criminal norms has its limits defined by scope of consideration; sphere of powers of the legislator and ordinary courts; constitutional restraint; and the aim to protect constitutional rights of criminal legal relations’ participants. The author analyses particularities of “negative” lawmaking in constitutional justice that limits or blocks criminal legal norms in their unconstitutional content, understanding or application. Unlike the parliament, constitutional justice authority cannot establish permanent criminal regulatory framework. Only provisional positive instructions are allowed which are necessary to minimize legal gaps in criminal legal protections; these optimize the way of eliminating unconstitutional normative defect. Based on continuous sample of Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation’ judgments related to criminal law norms the article demonstrates trends of lawmaking and particularities of judgments’ conclusions exercising constitutional sanction in the form of annulment of unconstitutional provisions. The author considers specifics of provisional regulations, recommendations to the legislator regarding criminal law issues, and constitutional legal interpretation of criminal law provisions. Constitutional judicial lawmaking results in a special source of criminal law defining constitutional boundaries of criminal regulation.