This thesis constitutes a comprehensive study of criminal law counteraction to domestic violence as a legally distinct type of violence, distinguished by a systematic approach to violence as a cross-cutting criminal law concept. On the basis of the results obtained, it is stated that the provision on domestic violence increases the scope of criminal offences and allows for the protection of victims from certain types of mental and economic violence which are not prohibited by other criminal law provisions. It is hereby proposed that the reference to physical violence be excluded from the disposition of Article 126-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, since such acts will be covered by the general provisions of the aforementioned Code on physical violence (without the feature of systematic nature). The author demonstrates that the reference to socially dangerous consequences in the provision on domestic violence (in the form of physical or psychological suffering, health disorders, disability, emotional dependence or deterioration of the victim's quality of life) is excessive, since the use of violence always entails negative consequences for the victim, and the criminal component lies in the ‘systematic nature’ of such acts. Inconsistent wording of certain signs of domestic violence in the law has been identified.
The article examines the state of theoretical research on criminal liability for domestic violence in Ukraine. It is stated that this issue has received due attention from researchers. Nevertheless, the criminal law studies point to the existence of controversial issues or those which require a more thorough elaboration of the following issues: correlation of the concepts of mental and psychological violence; insults and humiliation, intimidation and threats as types of psychological violence; interpretation of economic violence; analysis of socially dangerous consequences of domestic violence, in particular, emotional dependence, deterioration of the quality of life; expediency of dividing domestic violence into physical, psychological and economic; distinction between the analysed crime and criminal offences under competing norms, etc.
The author undertakes a detailed examination of the historical progression of criminal liability for domestic violence.
International legal standards for combating domestic violence are analysed. The analysis of the criminal legislation of individual EU member states made it possible to identify provisions that are worthy of imitation (establishment of a criminal law prohibition for a single manifestation of physical domestic violence; the existence of qualifying signs of domestic violence – committed against a disabled person, a person in a helpless state, a minor or underage person or in their presence), as well as those that should not be taken into account (the Criminal Code of Poland, where the legislator sets rather broad limits of punishment for domestic violence; the Criminal Code of Georgia, which duplicates responsibility for systematic insults in the basic and When considering the objective side of corpus delicti of domestic violence, the author analyses its types: physical, mental, and economic.
In the course of characterising the subject of corpus delicti of domestic violence, it is stated that it has both general and special features. However, the circle of perpetrators of domestic violence is still narrower than the circle of victims, because a certain category of persons, due to their age, physical or mental characteristics, cannot be recognised as the subject of the analysed offence, even if they are related to a spouse or former spouse or another person with whom the victim is or was in a family or close relationship (minors and persons in a helpless state).
As regards the criminal law qualification of domestic violence, the author formulates the qualification rules for the following cases: 1) qualification of domestic violence taking into account the systemic links of the provision on domestic violence; 2) qualification of domestic violence if the provision contains a sign of systematic nature; 3) qualification of criminal offences related to domestic violence.
Consideration of the punishability of domestic violence has shown that the relevant offence is a minor crime, and therefore not characterised by an increased degree of public danger. Domestic violence is one of those criminal offences for which criminal proceedings are carried out in the form of private prosecution (at the request of the victim). Nevertheless, the victim's subsequent refusal to press charges in a domestic violence case is not a ground for closing criminal proceedings, which indicates the legislator's special attention to this category of offences.
