TEACHER-GRAFTER: ANALYSIS OF LEGAL POSITIONS OF THE CRIMINAL CASSATION COURT OF THE SUPREME COURT

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the legal positions of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court, in which the issues of qualification of the corrupt behavior of teachers are resolved, and also to the investigation of the potential impact of these positions on law enforcement practice in terms of ensuring its uniformity and predictability. Both advantages and disadvantages of the approach advocated by the Supreme Court regarding the criminal law evaluation of the teacher’s receipt of undue benefit from the stu-dent for completing the graduate thesis instead of him and facilitating its successful defense before the state examination commission are clarified. The opinion was expressed that in-crimination in similar situations of Art. 354 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine should be con-nected with the failure of the teacher to fulfill the duties of the head of the diploma project and (or) failure (in violation of the Law of Ukraine “On Education”) to monitor the student’s compliance with academic integrity. The problematic nature of qualifying such actions as “passive” abuse of influence has been demonstrated, when considering the latest changes in anti-corruption legislation. The conclusion of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Supreme Court on the recogni-tion of a teacher, who administers exams as part of the examination committee, as the sub-ject of the crime provided for in Part 3 of Art. 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, has been criticized. It has been proven that criminal law analyses of the teacher’s corrupt behavior, which consists of receiving an illegal benefit, should be given on the basis of Art. 354 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Bribery of an employee of an enterprise, institution or organi-zation.” It has been noted that the approach to qualification of corrupt practices of teachers who do not hold administrative positions should be the same and at the same time not re-lated to the exercise of professional powers related to performance of legally significant ac-tions capable of creating, changing or terminating legal relations. An opinion has been expressed about the expediency of increasing the significance of the scientific conclusions of the members of the Scientific Advisory Council at the SupremeCourt. It has been shown that reviews of judicial practice, which are developed and system-atically published by the Supreme Court, despite their informative usefulness and satura-tion, cannot replace full-fledged (true) generalizations of judicial practice and are not able to ensure predictability and stability of judicial practice mentioned in the Anti-corruption Strategy-2025 and the State Anti-corruption Program practices in cases of corruption and corruption-related criminal offenses.