FEATURES OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR FRAUD COMMITTED DURING THE CONDITIONS OF MARITAL STATE

Abstract

The article examines the specifics of criminal liability for fraud committed under martial law. The author analyzes the latest changes made to the national criminal legislation after 2022. It is indicated that criminalization and decriminalization are elements that form the dynamics of criminal law and criminal legislation. Such dynamics, in fact, enable the continued existence of the principle of continuity in law. Any changes made to criminal legislation (this applies to both criminalization and decriminalization) must be systemic and comply with all principles of law-making activity and legislative technique. It is noted that the chaos of the process of improving the criminal legislation may result in the emergence of internal contradictions (legal conflicts and competitions). Criminal offenses against property, as well as violent illegal acts, remain stable in the criminal legislation of Ukraine, retaining characteristics that have not changed over the past decades. It is logical that negative socio-political and economic changes lead to the need for periodic clarification of dispositions of norms and secondary criminalization of property illegal acts. Peculiarities of the functioning of the state in the conditions of martial law led to the need to strengthen the limits of criminal liability for a number of criminal offenses against property. So, all of the above forms the basis for stating that any criminalization is socially, politically and economically determined. It has been proved that it is expedient to set out Part 3 of Art. 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the following wording: 3. Fraud committed during a state of war or state of emergency is punishable by imprisonment for a term of three to five years. This approach, firstly, will provide an opportunity to systematize the approach to the types of punishments that can be imposed for criminal offenses against property; secondly, it will eliminate the contradiction regarding the presence of an additional qualifying feature – the assignment of significant damage. The author also concludes that, taking into account the recently introduced amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, the above version seems more relevant.