Protection of the labor rights, freedoms and social interests in the criminal law: experience of foreign countries

Abstract

The analysis of certain points of the criminal legislation of the foreign countries, which provide protection of labour rights, freedoms and social interests, is made in the paper with the help of comparative legal analysis. Despite the quite wide legal regulation of labour relations in all countries in the world, the special criminal law protection of labour rights has remained a feature of "eastern" countries of the continental family of law mainly, the so-called post-socialist family of law. The analysis of criminal legislation of foreign countries regarding criminalization of the violation of labour rights of a person is conducted in the paper. Comparative-legal analysis allows defining general approaches to formation of labour rights of employees, including in the sphere of contractual relationship. The most similar and corresponding to the national criminal legislature are the Criminal codes of Spain an Polish Republic, which establish criminal liability for violation of not only labour legislation in force, but also conditions of individual labour acts (agreements, contracts etc.). It is stated in the text that the protection of labour rights in the modern legislation of foreign countries often has fragmentary, unsystematic nature. The violation of labour safety rules is most often regulated in the criminal legislation of foreign countries. Other types of violation of the labour legislation are regulated with arbitration under administrative or civil legislation. The drawbacks of the fatherland`s legislation are mentioned and the main positive improvements in this sphere after adoption of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in 2001 are emphasized. It was made the conclusion that the list of crimes against labour rights, which are provided by modern criminal legislations, is strong enough and has specific features. The list mentioned above could be the target for improving Ukrainian criminal legislation in certain cases. Therewith it is important to remember that formation of the legislation in the sphere of the protection of labour rights, freedoms and social interests directly depends on the development of the regulatory legislation. It is the clarity and certainty of blanket norms that will become the fundamental basis for the formation of effective criminal law protection of labour rights, freedoms and interests.