Paliukh L. Criminal Liability for Criminal Offenses against Justice

In the dissertation, the author has carried out the complex study of theoretical and practical issues of criminal liability for offenses against justice; she has offered the resolving of conceptual problems of defining responsibility for criminal offenses against justice in the Criminal Code of Ukraine and formulated proposals concerning the improvement of norms in the current Criminal Code of Ukraine. The designed methodological basis for investigating criminal responsibility for criminal offenses against justice helped identify the conceptual problems of responsibility for criminal offenses against justice which need solving, in particular, those which are unexplored, debatable or require further research. The study also covers the historical development of legislation on responsibility for encroachments on proceedings as well as the execution of court decisions. It analyses the criminal legislation of foreign states in the domain of establishing liability for criminal offenses that infringe on the established order of proceedings and the execution of court decisions. The author concludes that the criminal law rules establishing liability for criminal offenses against justice should be developed in the direction of harmonization with international legal acts and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. The problems of the social conditionality of criminal law norms on responsibility for criminal offenses against justice have been scrutinized. The consideration of the compliance of criminal law on liability for criminal offenses against justice with criteria of the social conditionality of criminal law made it possible to shape a number of relevant proposals to the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The homogeneity and close connection between the relations concerning the proceedings and the relations concerning the execution of court decisions are substantiated. This determines the need for the criminal law protection of these public relations by the rules of one section of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The author concludes that the generic object of criminal offenses against justice (provided for in Section XVIII of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) should be formulated as follows: public relations which ensure the established procedure for the proceedings and the execution of court decisions. The groups of public relations included in the specified generic object are deduced on the basis of the sequence of stages of the proceedings and the execution of court decisions. The proposals for systematizing criminal law norms of providing liability for criminal offenses against justice in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine have been shaped. The classifications of criminal offenses against justice are suggested from the point of view of studying criminal liability and systematizing the rules on liability for criminal offenses against justice. Following the division of criminal offenses against justice into classifying groups on the basis of such a criterion as the mechanism of causing harm to the object of criminal offense, the author analyses the problematic issues of regulating the signs of the bodies of criminal offenses against justice. A systematic approach to solving problems of regulating the material basis of criminal liability, interpreting and applying relevant criminal law rules as well as ways to solve problematic issues of the qualification of criminal offenses against justice have been elaborated. Common approaches to the differentiation of criminal liability for criminal offenses against justice have been defined and ways to solve related problems have been proposed. Proposals have also been made to improve a number of sanctions of criminal law rules.