Public calls for criminal offenses in post-Soviet countries (comparative analysis)

Abstract

The article provides a comparative analysis of the criminal legislation of post-Soviet countries in terms of criminalization of public calls to commit criminal offenses. The criminal codes of the following countries have been studied: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Common features of criminalization of public appeals in the named post-Soviet countries are established. Their distinctive features in comparison with the Ukrainian variant of regulation are defined. The list of subsequent crimes in the studied codes is not the same, but there are those whose public appeals are typical of the criminal codes of the vast majority of countries, namely – to: a) aggressive war, b) terrorist crimes, c) encroachments on the constitutional order and territorial integrity, d) mass riots. Unlike many European countries, the criminal codes of post-Soviet countries do not provide for universal types of public appeals (ie appeals to crime in general). The maximum of universalization here is calls only for crimes of a certain kind, for example, calls for terrorist crimes or crimes against the state. That is, it is mostly a case-by-case approach to the criminalization of public appeals – responsibility is established for public appeals to certain actions. In addition, the article draws attention to the following: a) the degree of punishment of public calls, that is, the penalties contained in sanctions (unqualified or «simple» public calls  are mostly punishable by up to 3 years in prison or up to 5 years), b) the differentiation of responsibilities (aggravating circumstances), c) system and placement of special types of public calls in the structure of special parts of criminal codes.