Understanding the legal regulation of suicide incitement in the contemporary criminal law with a case study on Bosnia and Herzegovina

Introduction. The article gives a criminal-legal characterization of the violent abuse of power or official authorities by a law enforcement officer. The importance of establishing criminal law signs of physical or mental violence in each case of such a criminal offense is indicated. It is concluded that the changes that were made to Article 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine cannot be considered successful. It is pointed out that the national criminal legislation cannot develop effectively if foreign experience in combating crime by criminal law means is not taken into account. The use of the comparative method in legal research is an important mean of improving the theory and practice of applying any legislation, including criminal law. Its only purpose should be to eliminate flaws in criminal legislation. Summary of the main research results. The paper provides a comparative legal analysis of national and foreign legislation on criminal responsibility for violent abuse of power and official authority. On this basis, it was concluded that it is necessary to introduce foreign experience in criminal law counteraction to violent abuse of power or official authority. According to the author, the provisions that should be introduced into national legislation are as follows: the subject of abuse of power or official authority should be any official, and not just a law enforcement officer; as a qualified element of this criminal offense, the commission of an excess with the use of physical violence or the threat of using such violence should be added; recognition of the inexpediency of indicating the infliction of bodily harm directly by excess of power or official authority; in the event of death, serious bodily injury or suicide of the victim, the actions of the perpetrator must be qualified under the relevant part of Art. 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on the grounds of the onset of grave consequences; the motives and purpose of committing such a criminal offense should not affect the qualification, but should be taken into account when imposing criminal punishment on the perpetrators. The article analyzes the rulings of the Judicial Chamber for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, which determine the ratio of parts 1 and 2 of Article 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on the specifics of qualifying forcible abuse of power or official authority and the need to establish the monetary equivalent of non-property damage in cases of such a criminal offense. The author proposes to change the approaches of judicial practice in the latter case. In preparing the article, general scientific and special methods were used. Thus, dogmatic and formal-legal methods were used in the analysis of the criminal law norm, which provides for criminal responsibility for violent abuse of power or official authority. The comparative method was applied when comparing the criminal legislation of Ukraine with the corresponding norms of the laws on criminal responsibility of other countries. A statistical method was used to study legal practice. Conclusions. The article draws scientifically based conclusions and offers author's recommendations for improving the current legislation on criminal responsibility for abuse of power or official authority by a law enforcement officer, namely: it is proposed to recognize all officials as the subject of this criminal offense; as a qualified element of this criminal offense, the commission of an excess with the use of physical violence or the threat of using such violence should be taken into account; it is not appropriate to indicate in the law directly to the infliction of bodily harm in excess of power or official authority; in the event of the death of the victim or the infliction of grievous bodily harm on him, the actions of the perpetrator must be qualified under the relevant part of Art. 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on the grounds of the onset of grave consequences; he motives and purpose of committing such a criminal offense should not affect the qualification, but should be taken into account when imposing criminal punishment on the perpetrators; physical, mental and other non-property harm in case of violent abuse of power or official authority should not be assessed according to the rules for causing property damage (one hundred or more times the non-taxable minimum income of citizens). The need for a legislative definition of the concept of physical and mental violence is indicated.

The article examines the current criminal law prohibitions on falsification of registers of legal entities adopted in the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States (at the federal and state levels). The topic of the article seems to be relevant, since such a study allows carrying out a wider - through contrast and comparison of existing regulations - study of the advantages and disadvantages of domestic experience in legal regulation and, if necessary, putting forward proposals for borrowing foreign countries' experience. The degree of scientific elaboration of the topic is low; Russian lawyers have not previously conducted similar studies. At the same time, crimes in the sphere of economic activity under Anglo-American law were studied earlier by N.E. Krylova, N.N. Polyansky, E.V. Chuprova, and other domestic researchers. Thus, the novelty of the article consists in the fact that it is the first Russian-language comparative legal study of the criminal falsification of the register of legal entities under the law of the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The author of the article compares the norms of criminal law of the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, particularly focusing on the criminal law regulation of the falsification of the register of companies under the law of different states. The basis of the methodology is a combination of general scientific and specific legal research methods. The general scientific methods are: analysis, analogy, induction, interpretation, and others. The main specific legal methods are: the comparative legal method and the formal legal method. At the beginning of the article, the author gives introductory provisions on the role of criminal law in the protection of public relations in the field of economic activity and indicates the problem of the lack of scientific development of the topic. In the main part, the author analyses the criminal law prohibitions in force in the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and at the federal level and at the level of individual states in the USA. In the final part of the article, the author presents the main conclusions of the study. The article has theoretical and practical significance. Thus, the conclusions of the article enrich the scope of theoretical knowledge about the criminal law of the United Kingdom and the United States on the analysed criminal law prohibitions. With regard to the practical plane, the conclusions of the article can become the basis for future changes in Russian legislation.

A criminal offence may be committed by a single person or it may include the participation of a number of people. In the latter case, it gives rise to criminal complicity. Criminal complicity implies that there is a number of persons who are either physically or mentally, directly or indirectly involved in the criminal activity, either in the same or in different locations. All the persons who take part in the joint action are called accomplices, whose collaboration is a significant factor in the commission of crime. However, complicity is not just a specific criminal offence including a number of persons whose collaboration has produced some consequences punishable under criminal law; it is also a special form of crime - collective crime, which is much more dangerous than individual crime. Depending on the kind of criminal activity as well as the mode of participation and collaboration in the activity, there are ample types of complicity. In this paper, the author analyzes the concept, characteristics, contents, types and specific features of the criminal act of complicity in the contemporary criminal law.

Although contemporary criminal law accepts the system of subjective criminal liability for a committed crime, numerous European legal documents as well as criminal laws, especially those that have been adopted lately, envisage exceptions from this system. Thus, a new form of criminal liability is being introduced: objective liability based on the causation. One of the forms of objective liability is the criminal liability of legal entities, which has been considered disputable for a long time. Obviously, legal entities cannot be held accountable for all types of criminal offences. They cannot be held liable on the grounds of legal provisions regarding mental competence and culpability (as the elements of subjective criminal liability), nor can they be imposed all types of criminal sanctions recognized in criminal legislation in general. In their new or revised criminal legislation, many countries have recognized and inagurated the objective criminal liability of legal persons for committed criminal offences alongside with the predominant system of subjective liability (based on the perpetrator's mental competence and culpability). It is indisputable that some legal entities (such as state authorities) cannot be prosecuted and held liable in criminal proceedings; consequently, there are some exemptions from criminal liability (particularly when it comes to the state and state bodies), but it does not exclude criminal liability of responsible officials (natural persons) for causing the consequences of a criminal offence. Due to the specific character of legal and contractual capacity of legal entities, law in general and criminal legislations in particular prescribe special legal grounds for establishing criminal liability of legal entities, which differ from the subjective liability of a natural person (perceived as a conscious and reasonable human being acting on his/her own free will) where the consequence of a criminal offence is a result of one's own conduct embodied either in the commission of a criminal offence or in the omission to act. Therefore, contemporary criminal laws have determined special types of criminal sanctions, such as: punishment, security measures, conditional (suspended) sentence and confiscation of material gain obtained by comitting the criminal offence, as well as the instruments, proceedings and conditions under which they may be imposed. Within the framework of the forthcoming reform of the entire penal legislation in the Republic of Serbia, the Serbian legislator may use the legal solutions envisaged in the analyzed documents and criminal legislations as a solid model for implementing the international standards in the field of criminal liability of legal entities. Hence, this paper discusses the particularities governing the application of criminal sanctions for legal entities in the Republic of Serbia, particularly as an instrument of crime control.

In contemporary criminal law, a prison sentence is the basic and most important type of criminal sanction imposed on criminal offenders in order to prevent and combat crime. In addition to the unconditional prison sentence, all criminal legislations also recognize different modalities of its imposition or execution. Different forms of substitute or alternative measures are awarded in cases where unconditional detention is not necessary. Thus, we can distinguish full or partial suspension of the prison sentence or some other kind of punishment. In the first case, it involves the suspended sentence. This is a complete exemption from the execution of a court-awarded prison sentences (and/or other types and forms of punishment), or determined for a specified time (probation period) and under certain conditions. In case the conditionally convicted person does not meet the set of general and special, mandatory or optional requirements, criminal law provides for mandatory or optional revocation of the suspended sentence. However, in addition to the suspended sentence as a form or modality of executing the imposed prison sentences, some modern criminal laws also recognize the suspended sentence as a special kind of criminal penalty - as a measure of warning. A prerequisite for the implementation of these measures is the fulfillment of the formal requirements, pertaining to the type of offence and prison sentence duration, or material conditions - the court assessment that the application of penalties in the particular case is not necessary because the goals (purpose) of punishment can be achieved without effective enforcement of prison sentences in whole or in part. This paper discusses the concept, characteristics, conditions and methods of implementation of these forms of prison sentence suspension, with various systems of probation supervision in the European criminal law.

Introduction. The article analyzes the phenomenon of immunities of different categories of persons in the criminal law of Ukraine, which has not yet been researched. The legal grounds for the existence of the practice of providing state guarantees of non-applicability of liability to certain subjects who commit acts similar to criminal offenses are determined. The expediency of conducting these studies is determined by the need to improve the normative regulation of legal relations in the criminal law of Ukraine. The purpose of the research is an attempt to specify the nature of the objectively existing phenomenon in the criminal law of Ukraine, which manifests legitimatіоn оf non-application of criminal-legal means (influence) to person, determined by the status of a person who has committed an act prescribed by the criminal law. The research methods used in the publication combine the use of dialectical, dogmatic, comparative methods, as well as systemic analysis. Summary of the main results of the study. Taking into account the traditional view of the process of application of criminal law, it was noted that not all actions that meet the characteristics of a criminal offense entail the application of criminal liability to a person or the application of other measures of a criminal law nature. Some participants in criminal legal relations have advantages over others. They are given guarantees that no restrictions on rights and freedoms provided for by the Criminal Code of Ukraine apply to them for any or individual actions. Such guarantees form immunities in criminal law. Some grounds for such immunities provided by international and national parliamentary law are considered. Attention was drawn to the lack of proper regulation of this issue directly in the criminal legislation. The need to supplement the criminal legislation with provisions on personal immunities is supported. Conclusions. Immunities in criminal law can be understood as restrictions, peculiarities or prohibitions on the application of any or certain measures of criminal law influence to him due to the specifics of a person's legal status for an act that coincides in terms with a criminal offense, or failure to recognize such an act committed as a criminal offense . The state's denial of the authority to apply criminal legal measures to a person in connection with the person's immunity is a real phenomenon. In order to ensure an appropriate special regime for the implementation of criminal-law relations with the participation of persons endowed with immunity, the specified phenomenon should receive proper regulation in the legislation on criminal liability.

In the article there are explanations between organized crime in criminal law point of view and complicity in criminal offence. Author explains existence of three forms of basic criminal law aspects of organized crime: 1) notion of organized criminal group, 2) relation between complicity and organized crime and 3) concrete incriminations which are typical for organized crime. In the article there are analyze too of the basic forms of complicity in criminal offence - co-perpetration, incitement and aiding/ abetting. Author explains too one former form of complicity in Yugoslav criminal law - the organizing of criminal enterprise, which is very similar to some legal solution from former criminal law of the Soviet Union, but even similar to contemporary criminal law of USA, when it comes to institute conspiracy. Author concludes that this form of complicity was highly controversial, primarily from the standpoint of its collision with the principles of guilt and individual subjective responsibility and as such has never been applied in practice, although substantially correspond to what are typical forms of organized crime. This paper analyzes some specific forms of participation in a criminal act, such as conspiracy in Anglo-Saxon criminal law and a special form of indirect perpetration in German criminal law. The author concludes that in practice under organized crime, as the subject of criminal proceedings often erroneously subsumed certain forms of complicity which do not fulfill all the necessary requirements to be considered at the same time forms of organized crime.

This chapter further develops the diagnosis of a revival of character in contemporary criminal law. First, it offers a more differentiated conceptual framework for identifying the waxing and waning influence of character in criminal law. In doing so it sets out, deliberately, from a broad definition of character as a pattern or practice of responsibility-attribution which is premised in whole or in part on an evaluation or estimation of the quality of the defendant's (manifested or assumed) disposition as distinct from his or her conduct. Second, drawing on this broad model of character, the chapter demonstrates the variety of ways in which contemporary criminal law is marked by a resurgence of character. Third, it sketches an extra-doctrinal explanation of why we have seen a resurgence of interest in and reliance on ideas of character responsibility: one which finds the roots of the ideology of responsibility which shapes the criminal law in broad practices of criminalization, themselves influenced by a political, economic, and social context. Finally, it draws some conclusions from this analysis for methodology in criminal law theory, and in particular for the appropriateness of a framework which locates its interpretation of criminal responsibility primarily within a conceptual analysis of legal doctrine in isolation from its context.

Background: The principle ne bis in idem is a traditional principle relevant to criminal proceedings in European states. While in the past, crime had a primarily national dimension, these days, it has an international dimension as well. The Europeanisation of law also occurred in criminal law, including criminal proceedings. Thus, an understanding of ne bis in idem as a modern guarantee involving the international dimension is needed. Methods: The basic sources used for the elaboration of the paper are scholarly sources (monographs, textbooks, studies, and scientific papers, etc.), legislative instruments (international agreements, etc.), and case-law (of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union). The materials used here also include the available explanatory memorandums. The author uses traditional methods of legal scientific (jurisprudential) research – general scientific methods as well as special methods of legal science (jurisprudence). The general scientific methods used in the paper are predominantly logical methods, namely, the method of analysis, the method of synthesis, and the method of analogy, as well as the descriptive method. The descriptive method has been used to familiarise the reader with the current legal regulation of ne bis in idem. The method of analysis has been used as regards relevant provisions and case-law. The method of synthesis has also been used, as has the method of analogy. The special methods of legal science used here predominantly include methods belonging to a group of interpretative methods, namely, the teleological method, the systematic method, the historical method, and the comparative method. The teleological method has been used as regards the explanation of the purpose of legislative instruments. The systematic method has been used in the classification of the principle of ne bis in idem. The historical method has been used as regards the genesis and historical aspects of ne bis in idem. The comparative method has been used to examine the relationship between legislative instruments. Results and Conclusions: The principle of ne bis in idem is one of the oldest norms in western civilisation. Since the Europeanisation of law also occurred in criminal law, including criminal proceedings, the principle of ne bis in idem became a part of international legal documents. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as amended by Protocol No. 7, introduced a new right – the ‘right not to be tried or punished twice’. In addition, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is the first bill of rights developed explicitly for the EU, also introduced the principle of ne bis in idem as the ‘right not to be tried or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence’. However, its understanding in the Charter has no additional significance. In principle, it is the same. Despite the fact the primary purpose of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement is to facilitate the free movement of persons between member states of the EU by removing internal border controls, several measures have been introduced which focus on police and judicial co-operation, including the principle of ne bis in idem, in the provision entitled ‘Application of the ne bis in idem principle’. This provision is considered the most developed expression of an internationally applicable ne bis in idem. Ne bis in idem also occurs in extradition proceedings and surrender proceedings. Its operation under the European Convention on Extradition prevents the double prosecution of the same person for the same offence in different jurisdictions. As regards the new procedural system introduced by the Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA on the European arrest warrant, based on the surrender proceedings as a special kind of criminal proceedings, there is no absolute obligation to execute the European arrest warrant. The Framework Decision, in its core text, includes grounds for non-execution of the arrest warrant in the executing state – and one of them is the principle of ne bis in idem

This book presents a theoretical examination of the rise and expansion of preventive criminal offences that has gained momentum in Anglo-American criminal justice since the late twentieth century. It shows how recent transformations in criminal law and justice are intrinsically related to and embedded in the way liberal society and liberal law have been imagined, developed, and conditioned by their social, political, and historical contexts. The book starts by identifying a tension, within contemporary criminal law, between the importance given to the expression of individual autonomy and responsibility, and the perceived need for prevention as a condition for the security of autonomy and the promotion of welfare. The book then traces this tension back to an intrinsic ambivalence within the modern conception of individual liberty, which is both repressed and preserved by liberal conceptions of responsibility and punishment. It finds that it is this tension that ultimately grounds the rise of preventive criminal offences in recent times. The Preventive Turn in Criminal Law engages with the main contemporary literature on criminal law, prevention, risk, security, and criminalization, by deploying a theoretical perspective from both classical and contemporary works of social and political theory, including the works of Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, and Bentham. It does so in order to reveal that the pervasiveness of prevention in twenty-first century criminal law not only represents the consequence of new and unprecedented features of contemporary politics and society, but also embeds long-established features of the liberal legal and political tradition.

In order to address the specific nature of criminal activities committed using computer networks and systems, the efforts of states to adapt or complement the existing criminal law with purposeful provisions is understandable. To create an appropriate legal framework for supressing cybercrime, except the rules of substantive criminal law predict certain behavior as criminal offenses against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data, computer systems and networks, it is essential that the provisions of the criminal procedure law contain adequate powers of competent authorities for detecting sources of illegal activities, or the collection of data on the committed criminal offense and offender, which can be used as evidence in criminal proceedings, taking into account the specificities of cyber crime and the environment within which the illegal activity is undertaken. Accordingly, the provisions of the criminal procedural law should be designed to be able to overcome certain challenges in discovering and proving high technology crime, and the provisions governing search of computer for discovery of electronic evidence is of special importance.

This chapter examines the tensions that exist between the principles of environmental law and criminal law. It first considers the ways in which environmental law and criminal law are mutually supportive and how they can complement one another by discussing the purpose of criminalization and the modes of interaction between public law and criminal law in relation to the environment. The chapter describes three ways in which criminal law interacts with different forms of the regulatory system: ‘one-step’ criminal offences, ‘two-step’ criminal offences, and ‘three-step’ criminal offences. It also explores the sanction of last resort and enforcement policy and how criminal law can be used as a substitute for environmental standards before concluding with an analysis of the conflicts in the principles of environmental law and criminal law with regards to strict liability, risk-based regulation, questions of interpretation, the harm principle, and moral certainty and symbolism.

In the scholarly article a thorough and interdisciplinary analysis is conducted on the transformations taking place within criminal law under the influence of rapid digitalization. The authors examine cybercrime not merely as a new form of criminal activity, but as a complex social and legal phenomenon that constantly evolves, becomes more sophisticated, and poses increasing challenges for law enforcement, legislators, and the international community. It is emphasized that cybercrimes today encompass an extremely wide range of offenses – from simple fraud to complex international money laundering schemes and the financing of terrorism. The article explores the main tools and technologies used in cyberspace to commit crimes, including cryptocurrencies (particularly Bitcoin and Monero), blockchain technology, the darknet, encryption software, phishing campaigns, and the use of artificial intelligence to create fake identities or falsify documents. The concept of ethical hacking is also considered, along with the role of so-called “white hat” hackers, who work within legal frameworks to improve cybersecurity. The authors analyze a series of real-life cases, both in Ukraine and abroad, which illustrate the scale, methods, and consequences of modern cybercrime. They highlight the transnational nature of cybercrime, which significantly complicates its detection, investigation, and prosecution – especially when national legal jurisdictions prove insufficient. Special emphasis is placed on the urgent need for a systemic update of criminal legislation. The authors convincingly argue that traditional legal tools are often inadequate or ineffective in the digital age. The paper addresses issues related to digital evidence, including the challenges of proper documentation, preservation, and admissibility in court. It also raises the important issue of the lack of unified international standards in the fight against cybercrime, which hinders intergovernmental cooperation. In this context, international legal instruments – particularly the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime – are reviewed, and the authors outline key areas where Ukraine must strengthen its participation in global initiatives. A comparative analysis of national approaches to combating cybercrime is also provided, focusing on countries such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Estonia. The study identifies best practices and legal mechanisms that could be adapted to the Ukrainian legal system. Practical recommendations are presented, including the introduction of new criminal offenses, the adaptation of procedures for handling digital evidence, and the development of a regulatory framework to facilitate cooperation between law enforcement and private cybersecurity firms. Overall, this article represents a significant contribution to the development of modern legal scholarship. It not only identifies the most pressing problems related to cybercrime and criminal law but also proposes realistic and actionable solutions. The material is of particular interest not only to legal scholars and practitioners but also to IT specialists, cybersecurity policymakers, international legal experts, and all those engaged in building a secure and legally sound digital environment.

The path that the Latvian normative regulation in criminal law and the Latvian criminal law doctrine took to arrive at the possibility of turning against legal entities by criminal law measures was neither fast nor simple. The initial position was that regulation like this would be incompatible with the basic principles of Latvian criminal law since, historically, psychological understanding of guilt has been characteristic in the Latvian criminal law, guilt is identified with a person's mental attitude towards the criminal offence, and guilt also is one of the grounds for criminal liability. It was not clear how this understanding of guilt could be compatible with punishing such "legal fiction" as a legal person in the framework of criminal law. Ways, in which Latvia could adjust its legal regulation to various international normative documents that Latvia had acceded to, at the same time leaving the dominant basic institutions of the Latvian criminal law theory unaffected, were sought rather reluctantly. Discussions that lasted for years resulted in the inclusion into the Criminal Law coercive measures, existing outside the system of criminal penalties, applicable to legal persons, likewise, several criteria were defined as the grounds for applying these coercive measures to legal persons, the central of which was a criminal offence, committed by a natural person who was connected to the legal person, in the interests of the legal person or as the result of insufficient control by this legal person. Accordingly, criminal procedural regulation was created, which to a large extent equalled a legal person to an accused natural person in criminal proceedings. Although the criminal law and criminal law regulation, which provides for the possibility to apply criminal law coercive measures to legal persons in the framework of criminal proceedings has existed in Latvia for already 16 years, these criminal law instruments have started taking their place in the practice of applying law only in recent years, simultaneously also revealing deficiencies in the legal regulation, already now providing sufficient material for analysis to be used for improving these legal norms.

In the contemporary criminal law, a prison sentence is the basic and most important type of criminal sanction which may be imposed on criminal offenders for the purpose of preventing and counteracting crime. All criminal legislations recognize different models of imposing and executing the unconditional prison sentence. These are different substitutes or alternatives applicable in cases where unconditional imprisonment is not considered necessary. Thus, we can distinguish two forms of suspension of the prison sentence or some other kind of punishment: full and partial suspension. Full suspension of a prison sentence is known as a suspended sentence. It implies a complete exemption from the execution of a prison sentence (and/or some other punishment or measure) imposed by the competent court, for a specified period of time (probation period) and under specific conditions. In case the convicted offender who has been imposed a suspended sentence not meet the general and specific, mandatory or optional requirements, criminal law provides for the mandatory or optional revocation of the suspended sentence. In addition to the suspended sentence as a form of executing the imposed prison sentence, some modern criminal laws also recognize the suspended sentence as a special kind of criminal penalty, i.e. as a warning measure. Partial suspension of the imposed prison sentence (or any other criminal sanction of institutional character) is called a conditional release. It implies a partial suspension of prison sentence under certain conditions and for a specified period, but only after the convicted offender has already served part of the imposed prison sentence. In order to be granted a conditional release, the convicted offender has to cumulatively meet the prescribed requirements. These criteria are used for assessing the scope of attained special prevention pertaining to the convicted offender, particularly in terms of the impact exerted on his/her correction, re-education and re-socialization. The prerequisite for implementing these measures is the fulfillment of the formal requirements (including the type and duration of the imposed and served prison sentence), as well as the requirements related to the discretionary court assessment that prison sentence is no longer necessary in the specific case because the goals (purpose) of punishment may be achieved even without the enforcement of prison sentences in whole or in part. In this paper, the author discusses the concept, characteristics, requirements and methods of implementing these forms of prison sentence suspension in the criminal law of the Republic of Serbia from the perspective of legal theory, practice and comparative law.