Regarding Compliance or Inconsistency of the Criminal Code of Ukraine with the Principle of Legal Certainty

Abstract

The article examines the problem of the content of the principle of legal certainty in relation to criminal law. Ten general requirements of this principle are defined and systematized: requirements of legal certainty of the law in the context of its form and content (accessibility; prohibition of retroactivity; stability; legitimate expectations; clarity; unambiguity; prevention of abuse due to discretion) and in the context of application and interpretation of the law (unity in the interpretation and application, availability of court decisions, their binding nature and enforceability). It is proved that the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the practice of its application do not meet all the requirements of the principle of legal certainty of the law. The methods of ensuring such compliance used during the drafting of the new Criminal Code of Ukraine are demonstrated, in particular: defining the concept of the principle of legal certainty in the Code; introduction of verification by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of amendments to the Code for compliance with this principle; establishment of time limits for amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine and increase of time for bringing its provisions to the population; introduction of a glossary (dictionary to the text of the Code), own unit of account and uniform amounts of damage of different types; determining the logical structure of the Code; other forms of articles of its General Part (one logical provision – one part of the article) and articles of the Special Part (one act – one paragraph of the article); 10 degrees of gravity of crimes and 10 types of sanctions (instead of the existing more than 150); typification of lists of circumstances that change the severity of crimes, and determination of the rules under which the severity of crimes changes; establishing the rules of criminal law qualification; unification of criminal remedies, such as punishment, probation, criminal record, security measures, restitution and compensation, confiscation of property and seizure of property and criminal remedies against a legal entity; typification of the grounds for release from punishment, amnesty and pardon, etc. Proposals were made to ensure this compliance by adopting the new Criminal Code of Ukraine and the Code of Administrative Offenses, and compliance with the requirement of uniform interpretation and application of the law – by maintaining in the Supreme Court a control copy of the Criminal Code of Ukraine with article-by-article materials with decisions of the panel of judges, the chamber, the joint chamber or the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court.