Responsibility for violation of the rules of financing a political party, election agitation or agitation of a referendum

Abstract

The article emphasizes that political parties contribute to the formation and expression of the political will of citizens. Thanks to them, citizens of Ukraine can exercise their right to freely choose and be elected to state and local government bodies. A form of direct democracy, in addition to elections, is a referendum. Attention is focused on the fact that the financing of political parties, pre-election campaigning or referendum campaigning can be the tool that, in the presence of deficiencies in the current legislation regulating social relations that arise when giving or receiving a contribution to support a political party, or when receiving state funding of a statutory activities of a political party, or when providing or receiving financial (material) support for pre election campaigning or referendum campaigning, may be used to suppress the will of voters. Attention is also drawn to such a phenomenon as political corruption.
 It is established that the fines for violating the rules of political party financing, pre-election campaigning or referendum campaigning are disproportionate to the amount of money that any political party receives and spends during elections. The consequence of this is that the amount of the fine fixed in the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses, the Criminal Code of Ukraine, is not a safeguard against violations. The amount of money spent on political advertising and pre-election campaigning and the amount of fines for violating the rules of political financing are disproportionate. It is proposed to amend the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses, applying an approach according to which the fine is 100% of the amount of illegal contributions or support received, but not less than 100 tax-free minimum incomes of citizens. If the reporting procedure is violated, the fine is at least 1,000 tax-free minimum incomes of citizens.
 The shortcomings of the legislation of Ukraine consist in the fact that the provision of financial (material) support for campaigning or in favor of a political party is equated with the transfer of ownership; for criminal offenses characterized by a greater degree of public danger, fines are lower than for administrative violations. Ways to improve the current legislation of Ukraine are proposed, including, in Art. 159 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is proposed to provide for such a sanction as confiscation of property.