Anishchuk V. Imaginary defence: the criminal-legal qualification and responsibility.

Dissertation is a completed independent research paper, one of the first integrated investigations in Ukrainian legal science dealing with the problem of imaginary defence as a circumstance that exclude criminality of an act. Profound investigation of the peculiarities of circumstances that exclude criminality of an act has given the possibility to define the correlation between the imaginary defence and the circumstances mentioned as separate and general. As a result it has been proved that imaginary defence, due to its social nature, does not coincide with the constitutional signs which characterize the circumstances that exclude criminality of an act, such as: 1) social profitableness (desire to achieve socially profitable aim) or admissibleness; 2) legitimacy which is presumed exceptionally from the position of the positive, but not natural understanding of law; 3) exception of criminal amenability. It has been proved that imaginary defence due to its criminal-legal nature can be considered as a mistake in the context of necessary defence as a circumstance that exclude criminality of an act, it is advisable that norm "Imaginary defence" should be expunged from Chapter VIII of CC of Ukraine "Circumstances that exclude criminality of an act".