Kolomiiets S. Guidelines on release from punishment

Kolomiets S. S. Guidelines on release from punishment. – Qualification work on the rights of the manuscript. Dissertation for the scholarly degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the specialty 081 Law. – Institute of State and Law named after V.M. Koretsky, Kyiv, 2024. The thesis is the first comprehensive and systematic scientific study of the guidelines on release from punishment under the criminal law of Ukraine, based on which the concept of an effective system of universal, group, and special rules of application of a fair type of release from punishment has been developed for a convicted person. The dissertation examines the legal phenomenon of “guidelines on release from punishment”. Insufficient attention of legislators to the issue of formulation of the guidelines on release from punishment in the legislation has been established, which is due to the small number of varieties of release from punishment, which are fixed in it. The conclusion about the social predetermination of the guidelines on release from punishment is supported. The definition of the concept of the guidelines on release from punishment is formulated and its features are revealed. The enshrining in the legislation the guidelines on release from punishment in the form of systematized rules in a certain logical sequence is justified. The definition of the notion of the system of guidelines on release from punishment with corresponding subsystems is formulated: universal rules of the release from punishment; group rules of the release from punishment; and special rules of the release from punishment. In the work, the provisions on the universal rules of the guidelines on the release from punishment, which should apply to all types of release from punishment without exception, have received further development. It is argued that the group rules of release from punishment should be applied to the types of release from punishment united in groups (based on a legal fact that gives rise to criminal law relations): 1) release from punishment due prescription (Part 5 of Article 74, Article 80 of the Criminal Code); 2) release from punishment due to the impracticality of applying the punishment to the convicted person (Part 4 of Article 74, Article 75 of the Criminal Code); 3) release from punishment in connection with the correction of a convicted person serving a sentence (Articles 81, 82 of the Criminal Code); 4) release from punishment due to the state of health of the convicted person (Article 84 of the Criminal Code); 5) release from punishment due to the convict's pregnancy or the presence of a child (Articles 79, 83 of the Criminal Code). The rules for the application of these groups of varieties of release from punishment have been formulated. In addition to the above, in the thesis, the author's definition of the concept of prescription in criminal law and the justified approach that should be guided by the court when assessing the fact of a person evading the investigation or the court are formulated. Circumstances characterizing the individual degree of severity of the offense are formulated, in the presence of which it is expedient for the court to apply for release from the imposition of punishment (Part 4 of Article 74 of the Criminal Code). The establishment of a restriction on the application of the replacement of the unserved part of the sentence with a milder one or parole from serving the sentence, if the convict has served less than a certain minimum term of the sentence, is additionally argued. In the thesis, there is suggested a new version of the provisions of parts 1 and 3 of Art. 81 of the Criminal Code, which should regulate the direct right of people serving life imprisonment to parole after they have factually served 25 years of imprisonment. The criteria that need to be examined by the court when deciding on the application of Art. 84 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: medical (taking into account by the courts the time of the onset of the disease, which affects both the decision by the court on the issue of release from punishment due to the disease in general, and the determination of the type of release from punishment applicable to such a person) and legal (establishing the ability to achieve in relation to a convict who has a certain disease, the purpose of punishment or the ability to fulfill the main or additional punishment assigned to him by the state). The importance of the addition of Art. 84 of the Criminal Code with a note that would determine the normative acts that the court should be guided by when determining diseases, which is the basis for the release of convicts from punishment in connection with the disease.