Legal consequences of the statement of provocation by the defense party: scientific and practical aspects

Abstract

The article examines the legal consequences of the defense’s declaration of provocation of a crime. Based on the analysis of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court, the opinion was formulated that the declaration of the commission of a crime as a result of provocation by the defense gives rise to the corresponding obligations for the defense and the prosecution, as well as the court. It was analyzed that as a result of the influence of the precedent practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the practice of the Supreme Court began to form regarding the position of the defense on provocation of a crime, according to which the contradiction of the position of the defense, i.e. when the applicant denies the fact that he committed a crime and at the same time declares that he was provoked to commit it, is the basis for the court’s refusal to verify such an application, citing the relevant reasons in the decision. Based on the study of the principle of adversariality of the parties in criminal proceedings, the thesis that it is the defense party that is obliged to prove the presence of provocation, to indicate which facts and circumstances confirm this with reference to specific evidence examined at the court hearing, is substantiated. In turn, the prosecutor, supporting public accusations, except for the circumstances specified in Art. 91 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, guided by the standard of proof «beyond a reasonable doubt», is obliged to prove the absence of provocation of the crime. Failure to prove «beyond a reasonable doubt» the absence of provocation is equivalent to proving its presence and causes legal consequences in the form of an acquittal by the court. It has been proven that when one of the arguments of the defense side was the presence of provocation of a crime, the court is obliged to properly evaluate both the arguments of the defense side and the arguments of the prosecution regarding the presence or absence of such provocation. According to the results of the analysis of the decisions of the Supreme Court in which the lower courts did not evaluate the arguments of the defense about provocation, or formally evaluated them formally, it was concluded that this is a significant violation of the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prevented or could have prevented the court from adopting a legal and justified court decision.