MONETARY PENALTY AS A CRIMINAL PROCEDURAL PUNITIVE SANCTION FOR DISREGARDING COURT SUMMONS IN THE COURSE OF PRE-TRIAL INVESTIGATION

Abstract

The article reveals the concept, essential features and the importance of monetary penalty as criminal procedural sanctions. The study offers author’s interpretation of monetary penalty as a measure of providing criminal proceedings, which implies the obligation to pay a certain amount of money to the state revenue. The payment amount is determined either by the decision of the judge of inquiry or by the court in trial proceedings in the terms of the penalties provided by the Code of Ukraine for disregarding procedural obligations without any good or valid reason. In this regard monetary penalties should be considered both as a means of procedural coercion and as the criminal procedural sanction. The author affirms that expanding the scope of monetary penalties in the current Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine in the terms of ensuring court proceedings can be approved since it encourages the subjects of the criminal procedure to perform their duties properly. For the purpose of further extension of the monetary penalties scope in case of failure to appear on summons the author heightens the need to amend Sec.1, Part 1 of Art. 139 in the CCP as follows: «If the person, in the order prescribed by this Code, was summoned to the court (in particular, when there is a clear evidence of receiving the summons or in case he/she has been familiarized with its content in some other way), but does not appear in the court without any good reason or has not informed of the reasons for non-arrival, he/she is imposed a monetary penalty of the amount …» Hypothesis of imposing monetary penalty for disregarding investigator’s, prosecutor’s, or judge’s of inquiry summonses includes: 1) documentary confirmation of receiving summons or familiarization with its content in some other way; 2) absence of the valid reasons for non-arrival or negligence of the summons; 3) non-reporting about the reasons for this nonfeasance. All of these issues should be taken into consideration to make imposing monetary penalties legitimate. The analysis of Part 1 of Art.139 of CCP «From the contrary» leads to the conclusion that the circumstances that exclude imposing monetary penalty on the person who failed to appear on summons comprise both the inability of the official, who sent the summons, to confirm documentarily the receipt of the summons by a person or familiarization with its content in some other way and the cases, when a person provides documents confirming the existence of valid reasons for the failure to appear on summons and when he/she has informed the investigator, the prosecutor or the judge of inquiry about them in time. When at least one of the two above mentioned circumstances is present it deprives the judge of the right to impose monetary penalty because the person appears to be not guilty of failing to appear on summons. The author states that in Sec. 8, Part 1 of Art. 137 of CCP it is advisable to define a monetary penalty as a criminal procedural punitive sanction for disregarding court summons or failure to appear on summons. Laying emphasis on the complexity of the economic situation in our country, the author heightens the need to supplement the art. 146 of the CCP of Ukraine with a new provision: «If the person, who was imposed a monetary penalty, can provide the judge of inquiry or the court with the proof of the inability to pay one-time monetary penalty in amount determined by the court, then the person can be sanctioned postponement or deferral of the court decision implementation up to 3 months».