CRIMINAL LAW PROTECTION OF JOURNALISTS IN UKRAINE: REFLECTION OF THE APPROACH

Abstract

The article is devoted to the review of the system of criminal law protection of journalists in Ukraine. The current state of normative and legal regulation of criminal liability for encroachments on the legitimate professional activity of journalists is analyzed; alongside with the reasons for strengthening of such liability; the possibility of allocating a separate group object of criminal law protection and the reasonableness of the emergence of a new specific object of protection, which is named in the law as «crimes against journalists». The reasons for this situation are two interrelated factors: the objective one and the subjective one. It is difficult to deny that the journalist's professional activity has got a rather large social impact and has become a dangerous profession in Ukraine. Among the subjective factors is the fact that during recent years many professional journalists have turned into professional politicians. The system of crimes against journalists is formed by the encroachments on the same (similar) direct object. It is indicated that there is every reason to assert that crimes, the main direct object of which is the legitimate professional activity of journalists, are the encroachments provided for by Articles 171, 345 1 , 347 1 , 348 1 , 349 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The main direct object of the corresponding crimes is characterized by the following elements: 1) the composition of subjects - it can only be performed by a journalist - a person with an editorial or service certificate or other document issued by the media, its editorial office or the professional or creative association of journalists. It is the journalist who enters into the relevant relations with other subjects (individuals and legal entities, communities, the state) on the subject-matter of journalistic activity – the information; 2) the essence of such relations is the systematic activity of a person associated with the collection, obtainment, creation, distribution, storage or other use of information; 3) the subject-matter of the relevant activity is the distribution of information among the uncertain circle of persons through the printed mass media, broadcasting organizations, news agencies, the Internet. Other persons whose special status gives them additional criminal law protection (the officials, the persons providing public services) bear criminal liability for abusing such status or for its negligent use – in other words: for intentional or negligent causing damage due to those additional opportunities that are provided to them by their profession (position, service, provision of services, etc.). The paper states that the introduction to the Criminal Code of the norms that would establish the criminal liability of journalists for the abuse of their rights and for the negligence in their duties would ensure the balance between «criminal law protection of rights» and «criminal law coercion to perform the duties», which would be a completely natural phenomenon, the balancing of criminal law influence. It seems that the corpus delicti of the relevant crimes should contain the same characteristics that the legislator has established for the officials and the persons providing public services in Articles 364, 364-1, 365-2 and 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.