(Un-)rape and involuntary manslaughter as examples of aberration of legal information in criminal law in Ukraine

Abstract

The article examines the phenomenon of aberration (distortion of the content) of regulatory and legal information in the field of criminal law on the example of certain basic elements of criminal offences (Part 1 of Article 152 “Rape”, Article 119 “Manslaughter by negligence” of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), as well as certain wording, in particular, the use of perfect and imperfect verbs, focusing on related activities instead of a certain activity, etc. The author proves that the aberration significantly distorts the meaning of certain criminal law prohibitions, which grossly violates the principle of legal certainty as an integral part of the rule of law. To improve the current wording of Part 1 of Article 152 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which does not define rape as penetration, nor as an act aimed at penetration, but only an act related to penetration, it is proposed to set out its disposition in the following wording: “Committing vaginal, anal or oral penetration into the body of another person using any part of the body or object without the voluntary consent of the victim, or penetration into the body of any person by the genitals of a man without the voluntary consent of the latter (rape)”. The article substantiates in the relevant articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, in particular, part 2 of Article 150-1, part 1 of Article 238, part 2 of Article 296, part 3 of Article 314, part 5 of Article 321, part 4 of Article 321-1, part 2 of Article 353, part 1 of Article 365-2, Article 377, part 1 of Article 378, Article 379, Articles 398, 400, 434 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, etc., the focus should be on a certain activity, but not on any other activity (tangential, adjacent, auxiliary, service, etc.). To improve the current wording of Article 119 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which provides for liability for “murder committed through negligence”, i.e., in fact, for intentional unlawful infliction of death to another person committed through negligence”, the following alternative options are proposed 1) toinclude an indication of the form of guilt beyond the direct definition of murder in part 1 of Article 115 ofthe Criminal Code of Ukraine, or 2) to replace the wording of the disposition of Article 119 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine from “murder committed through negligence” to “unlawful infliction of death to another person committed through negligence”. The previous proposal to replace certain imperfect verbs in the articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine with perfect verbs, if they retain the status of a criminal offence with a material element, has been improved.