Committing A Crime Against A Child As An Aggravating Circumstance Under The Criminal Code Of Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to issues related to the commission of illegal, socially dangerous acts (action or inaction) against children under the current Criminal Code of Ukraine, the similarity of the legal nature of the circumstances aggravating the punishment, and the qualifying elements of the crime, the analysis of differences between qualifying attributes and aggravating circumstances.

Article 65 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides that when imposing an appropriate punishment on the perpetrator, the courts must, among other things, take into account the circumstances that mitigate and aggravate the punishment. In contrast to mitigating, the list of aggravating circumstances is exhaustive. Therefore, their precise determination in each particular case is important, since it directly affects the sentencing within the limits of the sanction of the relevant article. Another issue that deserves the attention of not only theoreticians, but also practitioners is the issue of committing a crime against a minor child or in the presence of a child (paragraph 6 of clause 1 of Article 67 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

It has been established that, notwithstanding the generally recognized value of human life, the legislative and enforcement practices of Ukrainian criminal law do not always fully meet the requirements of guaranteeing and protecting the rights of children, creating conditions for their free realization. Therefore, the issues of improving the legal mechanisms for the implementation of these rights, defining the legal principles of protecting the child's life from illegal, unlawful encroachments become relevant.

The crimes in which criminal liability for crimes committed against or in the presence of children was investigated, the analysis of the works of scientists engaged in the given subject was made, the differences between qualifying features and circumstances that impose a punishment were determined, our own vision regarding accounting by law enforcement agencies for aggravating liability is given. A distinction has been made between articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in which the child acts as a victim, that is, the harm can be caused both physical and psychological - when an unlawful act is committed in the presence of a minor.