The work is devoted to a comprehensive study of qualifications in the criminal law of Ukraine. The dissertation, based on the application of systemic, functional and psychological approaches, considers theoretical and applied problems of qualification in criminal law, the internal structure and external relations of qualification in criminal law, as well as its place in the system of criminal law.
The author's definition of the concept of qualification in criminal law is formulated, which should be understood as the activity of law enforcement agencies and courts, which is carried out within the framework of criminal law enforcement relations of security nature and consists in normative-regulated, concretized, effective criminal-legal assessment of criminal legal fact. actual criminally significant features, determining the criminal law norm that provides for it, and establishing the conformity of the factual features of the criminal legal fact to the signs of a specific criminal law norm.
The functional purpose of the qualification is the appropriate response of the state to the commission of a criminally significant act, ensuring the implementation of criminal law influence and justification of the need and specific type of such influence on the person who committed a criminally significant act; it is argued that qualification in criminal law performs two main interrelated functions: regulatory and protective, as well as additional functions: incentive, compensatory, corrective, etc.
Criminal and legal influence as well as qualification in criminal law are carried out within the limits of criminal legal relations; reasoned author's vision of criminal legal relations which should be understood as the interaction of subjects of such relations mediated by criminal legal norms, caused by the criminal legal fact in connection with emergence, realization, change and termination of corresponding, specified and personified subjective rights and legal obligations' languages in order to achieve a social result – ensuring justice, security and preventing the commission of socially dangerous acts.
Qualification in criminal law is a generic concept that includes three groups of criminal law assessments: qualification of a criminal offense; criminal-legal qualification of an act that is not criminally illegal, but has criminal-legal significance; criminal and legal qualification of post-criminal behavior of a person. Characteristics inherent in the qualification in criminal law as a generic concept, are inherent in its types: qualification of a criminal offense, criminal-legal qualification of an act that is not criminally illegal, but has criminal-legal significance, and criminal-legal qualification of post-criminal behavior, taking into account the features inherent in this species concept.
The essence of qualification in criminal law is a criminal and legal assessment of a criminal legal fact that provides criminal and legal influence on a person who has committed a criminally significant act, including its socio-legal purpose and role; it is substantiated that the criminal-legal assessment, as an essential feature of qualification, is system-forming, as it determines the main thing, the essence and content of the qualification, determines the specifics of its properties, determines the scope of its concept, is the basis for distinguishing qualifications in criminal law from other concepts and processes, activities for the application of criminal law; other characteristics of qualification are combined into concepts around this essential system-forming feature.
The division of qualification in criminal law into types according to different classification criteria with substantiation of their significance is carried out. The essential, substantive, structural and functional characteristics of qualification in criminal law are investigated, its concepts, types, stages, algorithms, rules and place in the system of criminal-legal influence are defined.
