CURRENT STATE OF THE LAW ON CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR VIOLATION OF THE PROCEDURE OF ENTRY INTO THE TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORY OF UKRAINE AND EXIT

Abstract

The article examines the current state of the law on criminal liability for violation of the procedure for entering and leaving the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, as a result of which Art. 332-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine to decriminalize at least because the regime of the temporarily occupied territories is temporary, and the temporary articles of the criminal law to the world have not yet been known. The Constitution of Ukraine in Art. 17 declared that the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, ensuring its economic and information security are the most important functions of the state, the business of the entire Ukrainian people. The defense of Ukraine, protection of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability are entrusted to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ensuring state security and protection of the state border of Ukraine are entrusted to the relevant military formations and law enforcement agencies of the state, the organization and procedure of which are determined by law. In late 2013 - early 2014, the Russian Federation, taking advantage of the problems in our army to perform such functions, launched an open armed aggression, which, in addition to killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians, led to the illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In fact, the state border with the Russian Federation in eastern Ukraine has become a line of demarcation between the territory controlled by the state of Ukraine and the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Parliament reacted to this acute problem in a rather predictable way - on April 15, 2014, the Law of Ukraine № 1207-VII “On Ensuring the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens and the Legal Regime in the Temporarily Occupied Territory of Ukraine” was adopted. 332-1 "Violation of the procedure for entering and leaving the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine." Such a decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine provoked both sharp discussions in the science of criminal law and problems in the application of this norm in practice. Thus, during the period under study from 2014 to February 2021, we registered 212 cases of violation of the procedure for entering and leaving the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. However, according to the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, the courts of Ukraine have handed down 30 court convictions for violating the procedure for entering and leaving the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. Of these, 7 were handed down in 2015, 21 in 2016, and one sentence each in 2017 and 2019.