On the issue of criminal liability for crimes committed out of hatred

Abstract

In this article the author is conducts the analysis of norms of the criminal legislation of Ukraine in the field of criminal legal counteraction to the violation of the constitutional principle of equality and tolerant attitude towards different social groups of people. It was determined that in order to effectively protect social relations in the sphere of ensuring full and unhindered implementation of the principle of equality, as well as tolerant relations of representatives of various social groups, the national legislation contains a system of criminal law norms in this sphere. However, the available analytical and statistical data indicate an annual increase in the number of both registered and latent criminal offenses committed out of hatred for representatives of certain social groups, at the same time, the number of criminal proceedings sent to the court and considered on the merits is insignificant, which is due, among other things, to the imperfection of the norms of criminal legislation. It is noted that the world community has developed a large number of normative legal acts in the field of ensuring equality and tolerance. The national mechanism for protection of equality and tolerant attitude towards different social groups includes the system of criminal law norms, which are located in the General and Special parts of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It was noted that in accordance with the content of the system of criminal legal norms, which ensure the protection of equality and tolerant attitude towards different social groups, the legislator uses different terms for the description in the text of the normative legal act. In particular, "on the basis of racial, national, religious enmity or discord or on the basis of sexual affiliation", "inciting national, regional, racial or religious enmity and hatred", "on the grounds of racial, national or religious intolerance", which, due to their synonymous the content does not quite meet the requirements for legal language and technique regarding legal certainty. It was concluded that a common term used, by the way, not only by the legal institutions of the European Union, but also of the United States of America, is the commission of a crime motivated by hatred of various social groups. Therefore, with the aim of harmonizing domestic legislation with the legal field of the European Union, improving the effectiveness of law enforcement, the terms: "enmity", "intolerance", "discord" in the relevant articles of the current Criminal Code of Ukraine should be changed to the term "hate".