Damage and its types under the current law on Criminal liability and the draft of the new Сriminal code of Ukraine: a comparative legal aspect
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The development of Ukraine as a modern legal and democratic state striving to achieve European standards requires the adaptation of national legislation, including criminal law, to EU legal standards. To this end, work has begun on a draft of a new Criminal Code of Ukraine. The draft enshrines the rules of criminal law classification, which include the definition of harm caused to protected rights and freedoms and its types. The article provides a comparative analysis of approaches to understanding harm and its types in accordance with the current Criminal Code of Ukraine and the draft new Criminal Code of Ukraine; it analyzes the activities of the Working Group as the authors of the draft new Criminal Code of Ukraine. It is argued that the draft new Criminal Code of Ukraine is a more logical and structured normative act compared to the current criminal law. The essence and types of harm are revealed in accordance with the draft Criminal Code of Ukraine as a mandatory feature of the objective side of a criminal offense, its significance for determining the severity of criminally punishable acts, and its impact on criminal law sanctions. An analysis of recent studies on approaches to changes in the basic degree of severity of a criminal offense is conducted. A classification of types of harm is provided in accordance with the hierarchy of social values, which provides for the distinction between substantial, significant, serious, particularly serious, and exceptionally serious harm. The differences between harm and its types in the current Criminal Code of Ukraine and the draft Criminal Code of Ukraine are analyzed, and the existence of formal logical contradictions in the current Criminal Code of Ukraine is proven. Conclusions are made about the importance of defining types of harm that directly depend on the object of the offense; it has been proven that damage affects the determination of the severity of a criminal offense and, therefore, is related to criminal law sanctions; it has been substantiated that damage in the draft Criminal Code of Ukraine differs in its structure and clear regulation, which accordingly reduces the number of evaluative concepts that so overload the current law on criminal liability in Ukraine.
Authors: O. M. Cheban, T. A. Nechyporenko
Institution: National Transport University
Language: English
Topic: Criminal Law and Policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7127074014