Problems of criminal-legal assessment of mental violence

Abstract

The article examines the problems of criminal law assessment of mental violence. The author draws attention to the fact that the current criminal legislation in some cases does not contain an adequate criminal law assessment of socially dangerous encroachment on the human psyche, limited to indications of threats, deception or abuse of trust, humiliation and dignity, which do not exhaust the meaning of «mental violence». At the same time, Articles 129 and 185 of the Criminal Code leave out a number of important points outside the legislative attention. For example, Art. 129 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides for liability for the threat of murder, but does not provide for liability for the threat of harm to the health of a person, if there were grounds to fear the threat, which is unlikely because the threat caused serious suffering to a person who fears not only for his life, but also for health. Article 189 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine limits the range of addressees of relevant threats only to the victim and his close relatives and leaves out of the sphere of protection of other persons who are close to the victim, but are not his close relatives (brides, friends). Also, the current Criminal Code does not address at the regulatory level such types of mental violence as hypnosis, suggestion, etc. methods of human manipulation (including the use of technical means), which are used to inflict various harm to the person and his interests. The author proposes to make changes and additions to the Criminal Code, which will eliminate the above gaps in the legislation. In particular, it is proposed to supplement Art. 129 of the Criminal code of Ukraine by the instruction on threat of harm to health of the person, in Art. 189 the words «close relatives» should be replaced by «close persons», and it is also proposed to supplement the Criminal Code of Ukraine with a new article, which will establish responsibility for manipulating the human psyche. Keywords: human psyche, manipulation, criminal-legal assessment.