Characteristics of the subject as a basis for distinguishing certain crimes against the foundations of national security of Ukraine (according to the components provided for in Articles 111, 111-1, 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The issue of criminal liability for crimes against the foundations of national security of Ukraine became particularly relevant with the beginning of russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and with the full-scale invasion of the aggressor state’s troops and the introduction of martial law. Given the similarity of certain elements of these crimes, it became necessary to establish distinguishing features, one of which is the subject of the crime as one of the mandatory elements of the crime. The purpose of this study was to determine the features of the subject to distinguish related elements of crimes against the foundations of national security and provide proposals for their improvement. Establishing the features of the subject of each of the crimes provided for in Art. 111, Art. 111-1, Art. 111-2, led to a number of important conclusions for both the theory of criminal law and lawmaking activity, and for the practice of applying the norms of criminal law. The subject of crimes against the foundations of national security provided for in Art. 111, Art. 111-1, Art. 111-2, is special on the basis of citizenship, which at the same time is a distinguishing feature for the correct qualification of the committed criminally punishable acts. In order to avoid competition of criminal law norms when qualifying the acts of a person falling under the features of the elements of crimes provided for by the above-mentioned articles, we propose to make the following changes to such norms: to legislate the feature of citizenship in Part 4 and Part 6 of Art. 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, indicating that the actions provided for in these norms can be committed only by a citizen of Ukraine; to exclude from the disposition of Art. 111-2 the phrase «citizen of Ukraine», thereby stipulating the possibility of holding only foreigners and stateless persons liable under this article. This will increase the effectiveness of bringing persons to justice for committing crimes against the foundations of national security and ensure the imposition of a fair and sufficient type and amount of punishment. This study does not resolve all issues of delimiting the elements of crimes against the foundations of national security and is promising for further improvement of the relevant norms of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Author: A. V. Landina
Institution: V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408943801