Criminal Influence and Feasibility of its Preservation in New Criminal Code of Ukraine

Abstract

The concept of criminal influence, which was introduced into the Criminal Code of Ukraine in June 2020, has been highly criticized by the scientific community and practitioners, among other things, for violation of the principle of legal certainty and the rule of law. This article defines the main disadvantages of the provisions that establish criminal liability for acts related to criminal influence and analyzes the feasibility of preservation of these provisions in their original form in the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the possibility of their transfer to the draft of the new Criminal Code of Ukraine. It is concluded that the mentioned norms should be at least substantially revised, with taking into account comments of the Ukrainian scientists, and cannot be transferred into the new criminal law as they are currently defined. Moreover, introduction of specific amendments to other laws is also required in this regard.The Working Group on the development of criminal law, as the author of the draft of the new Criminal Code, reasonably refused from the existing concept of the criminal influence. At the same time, they defined criminally punishable acts, which can be considered as a certain equivalent of the criminal influence (socalled “criminal leadership”). Provisions developed by the Working Group differ from the current by the more precise definition of specific actions, which constitute corpus delicti of criminal leadership, avoidance of jargon formulations, decrease of the terms of imprisonment for committing the relevant crimes, and diversification of criminal legal measures that can be applied to offender besides the punishment. In general, it appears that the Working Group avoided the main mistakes which are present in the current legislation. However, it is too early to draw conclusions regarding the acceptability of the proposed article of the new criminal law. Only after the draft of the new Criminal Code of Ukraine has been finished and its provisions can be analyzed altogether, final conclusions regarding the mentioned norms can be drawn.