Legal qualification of the use of foul language at work: mobbing or petty hooliganism

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of legal qualification of the use of foul language at work. Despite the fact that Ukrainian labour legislation was supplemented with anti-mobbing innovations at the end of last year, these innovations remain understudied, which leads to many problems in law enforcement. For example, one of the controversial issues is the distinction between the content of Articles 173 «Petty hooliganism» and 1735 «Mobbing (Baiting) of an Employee» of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences.
 To gain a deeper understanding of the central topic of the study, the author analyzes the legal nature of such phenomena as mobbing in labour relations and petty hooliganism. In particular, the author examines their system of features through the prism of its understanding as a holistic and interconnected structure characterised by emergence and impossibility of the whole’s existence without its individual elements.
 In the course of writing this article, the author took into account the situational nature of the use of foul language in the workplace, and therefore proposed several options for resolving various incidents. In particular, the author considers situations in which: 1) an employee constantly uses foul language during communication at work solely due to a low level of speech culture; 2) an employee systematically humiliates the honour and dignity of a colleague by using foul language.
 In addition, the author’s position was expressed in the research paper that the concept of «public place» used in the wording of the disposition of Article 173 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences is generic in nature, while the term «place of work» is specific in relation to the previous one.
 The empirical basis of the study is the national regulatory legal acts (the Labour Code of Ukraine and the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences), as well as court practice.
 In general, this research article is intended to contribute to the improvement of the efficiency of application of the relevant legal provisions of labour and administrative legislation and fair consideration of cases of administrative offences.