Dimitrov M. Threat Under Criminal Law of Ukraine

This thesis is the first research in the Ukrainian criminal doctrine that considers a threat as a comprehensive criminal concept. This research proves the sound feasibility of introducing the concept of recognizing a threat to inflict socially dangerous harm as one of the forms of preparation for crime to the criminal legislation of Ukraine. The realization of this idea will provide balanced safety of legal relations not only from real harm but also from the danger of its infliction. The most essential theoretical and practical results can be used both in criminal science and legislative and law-enforcement activity. In Chapter 1 the research state of a threat in criminal doctrine is determined. The analysis showed that this issue is quite popular among researchers but given studies show numerous debatable attitudes toward: correlation of the concepts threat and menace, identification of the intention to commit a crime, preparation for crime and criminal attempt, compulsion, violence, blackmailing; threat victim; threat content; criminal consequences; possible time of threat realization; intimidation and reality as signs of a threat, etc. Besides, there are a lot of issues that lack study, for instance: the criminal meaning of legislative constructions in the part of defining the subject who is accused of threat (addressee) and the subject who the content of this threat refers to (threat victim); criminal assessment of cases when a far-off (derived) goal of threat is socially acceptable or even socially beneficial; the system of regulations on a threat, etc. The historical journey is taken in the part of criminal regulation of a threat that resulted in the making of the following conclusions: 1) All analyzed law texts that go back to Kyivan Rus’ consider threat as socially dangerous behavior subjected to punishment. 2) The threat to cause harm was considered the stage of crime commission and intent realization (Lithuanian Statutes of 1529, 1566, and 1588, “The Laws Under Which People of Little Russia are Judged” of 1743, and “Regulations on Criminal and Corrective Punishment” of 1845). 3) "Regulations on Criminal and Corrective Punishment" of 1845 was the first document to define the so-called reality of the grounds to fear the realization of a threat as a substantial sign of a threat. 4) There were different attitudes toward the liability for a threat over history: from producing casual or general norms (Russkaya Pravda; Lithuanian Statutes; The Laws Under Which People of Little Russia are Judged; and CC of USSR of 1927) to the wide differentiation of liability (Regulations on Criminal and Corrective Punishment of 1845; Criminal Regulations of 1903; and CC of USSR of 1960).