In the dissertation a comparative legal study of the problems of criminal responsibility for violation of the secret of correspondence in Ukraine and the Republic of Poland was carried out their signs, identification and resolution of problems of qualification of the respective crimes, as well as improvement of the means of protection of this secrecy provided by the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
It is stated that in the territories that were part of the Russian Empire, independent norms on its criminal law protection appeared in the monuments of law of the middle of the XIX century. Changes in the composition of the violation of the secrecy of correspondence in the Criminal Code of 1903, the Criminal Code of the USSR in 1922 and the Criminal Code of the USSR in 1927, the Criminal Code of the USSR in 1960 are analyzed.
It is investigated that on the territory of the modern Republic of Poland and part of Western Ukraine the norm establishing criminal liability for breach of secrecy of correspondence appeared in the Criminal Code of the Kingdom of Poland in 1818, and this secret (first of all, such a component as correspondence secrecy) was consistently protected criminal law throughout the period of development of Polish criminal law.
The normative acts of criminal law protection of secrecy of correspondence operating in the territory of three states - the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, as before 1918 the territory of the Commonwealth was divided between them, and accordingly, each part of the Commonwealth had its own legal system.
The concept of the direct object of the crime under Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which is the constitutional right of a person to secrecy of correspondence by means of communication (in particular, correspondence, telephone, telegraph) or via computer. It is established that the individual object of § 1 of Art. 267 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Poland constitutes the right to secrecy of correspondence, while the individual object of the corpus delicti under § 3 and 4 of Art. 267 of the Criminal Code - the right to secrecy of correspondence and other opportunities that constitute the right to secrecy of information.
It is established that the forms of "violation" of the secrecy of correspondence (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) are acquaintance with the secrecy of correspondence (which may be committed by a subject who due to their professional or official duties does not have access to such secrecy) and disclosure of secrecy correspondence (which can be done both by persons with such access and by third parties to correspondence).
It is shown that the objective aspects of the violation of the secrecy of correspondence in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Poland (§ 1, 3 and 4 of Article 267) and the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Article 163) differ significantly: the Polish criminal law provides for three different types of crimes. , and the boundaries of both codes of criminal acts covered by these articles do not coincide.
It is substantiated that the subject in the composition of the violation of the secrecy of correspondence in Ukraine and the Republic of Poland is not endowed with any additional (special) features.
It is proved that the construction of the crime under Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine allows not only intentional, but also, in cases of violation of the secrecy of correspondence in the form of its disclosure, careless form of guilt; instead, under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Poland, all elements of violation of the secrecy of correspondence are only intentional and are characterized by direct intent (§ 1 and 3 of Article 267 of the Criminal Code), direct or possible intent (§ 4 of Article 267 of the Criminal Code).
It is substantiated that the theoretical and methodological main solution to these problems should be: the principles of qualification of crimes (first of all, the principle of non bis in idem); rules for overcoming competition in criminal law (in Ukraine) or rules for classifying crimes by imaginary coincidence of prescriptions (in the Republic of Poland); rules of qualification of a set of crimes (in Ukraine) or rules of qualification of crimes by cumulative coincidence of instructions (in the Republic of Poland).
It is proposed to make changes and additions to the Criminal Code of Ukraine: to state Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the new edition and to supplement the Criminal Code of Ukraine Art. 163-1 “Article 163-1. Unauthorized disclosure of secrecy of correspondence".
