Means of ensuring the understandability of criminal legal norms under the authentic national legislation of the X-XVIII centuries

Abstract

In the article the normative acts that contained criminal law norms and operated on the territory of modern Ukraine were analyzed, which made it possible to trace the development of legal techniques and identify the directions used by the compilers for a clear statement of criminal law norms. It is established that at the first stages of formation of legal technique commitment for intelligibility was reflected only in the proximity of the language of acts (primarily vocabulary) to the living vernacular. It was gradually realized that not only the improvement of terminology, but also the specifics of syntax, standardization of individual articles of criminal law, clear structure and sequence of material both within articles and in general are necessary for intelligibility of the criminal law.
 An analysis of the texts of Russkaya Pravda (various editions), three Lithuanian Statutes, "Rights under which the Little Russian people are tried" showed that during the existence and validity of these acts there was a process of forming an authentic national tradition of lawmaking, legal technique of criminal law was improving. These acts, compared to the then European ones which were difficult to perceive and understand, were easily applied and generally understandable to a wide range of subjects of criminal law. For this purpose, linguistic and stylistic means were used and subsequently improved: in the conditions of diglossia the language of normative acts was brought closer to the vernacular with the obligatory use of clear, according to their origin, legal tokens; an attempt to describe accurately the action through a casuistic statement and at the same time an awareness of the need for an abstract statement (so far only by supplementing the lists with generalizing words); uniformity of construction of criminal law prohibitions; more logical systematization of normative material, structuring both acts as a whole and certain criminal law provisions. At the same time the desire for accuracy and clarity gradually leveled such a requirement as conciseness.