Legal responsibility for animal cruelty: EU and Ukraine practice

The paper examines the issue of legal responsibility for animal cruelty in Ukraine and EU member states. The main acts of domestic legislation, which specialize in the protection of animals from cruel treatment, have been identified. It has been established that the EU member states have implemented a significant number of legal acts that allow the protection of animals at the legislative level. In all European countries, abuse of animals is considered a crime and is punishable by a fine or even imprisonment. The legislation of Italy, Norway, Greece and France was analyzed. It has been established that in Italy the term of imprisonment ranges from 3 to 18 months, and the fine that the animal abuser will have to pay can reach 30,000 euros. Norway is also worthy of attention, where the penalty is imprisonment for up to 1 year, the imposition of a fine with confiscation of the animal. In Greece, animal cruelty is subject to administrative and criminal liability. Administrative responsibility can reach 30,000 thousand euros. Criminal liability consists of imprisonment for up to 10 years and fines from 30,000 to 50,000 euros. In France, criminal liability is provided in the form of imprisonment for up to 5 years and a fine of up to 75,000 thousand euros. Based on the analysis of the legislation of European countries, changes to the domestic legislation are proposed, namely, it is worth borrowing foreign experience and in case of cruel treatment of animals, in addition to the prescribed confiscation of the animal, establish a ban on their further keeping. In addition, a global problem in the area of prosecution is the low public awareness of legal responsibility for animal cruelty, so one of the important measures is the implementation of legal education measures regarding administrative and criminal norms that provide for responsibility and the degree of punishment for the specified offense.