CRIMINAL LAW CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VICTIM OF A CRIME UNDER ARTICLE 376 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The article provides the criminal law characteristics of a person who is a victim of a crime under Article 376 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The indication of a judge as a victim in the performance of his/her official duties or in rendering a judgment is a constitutional feature of the crime under study. The author proves that the absence of jurors as victims in the construction of Article 376 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is an obvious gap in criminal law, given the constitutional and legislative provisions on the meaning of this institution, as well as the ongoing practice of jury trials in criminal proceedings for particularly serious crimes. Additional arguments are made in favor of singling out a juror as a victim in case of interference with judicial activ-ities: 1) functional affiliation associated with the participation of jurors in the resolution of court cases, as well as the performance of other duties in case of involvement in the admin-istration of justice; 2) liability for unlawful behavior towards jurors aimed at obstructing the latter's duties in the administration of justice is provided for by the criminal legislation of a number of continental European countries, the approximation of which is one of the require-ments for Ukraine's accession to the European Union; 3) the inclusion of jurors in the list of victims will help to overcome the contradictions in criminal law caused by the simultaneous existence of corpus delicti of criminal offenses (Articles 377-379 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), in which jurors are also special victims, and the torts themselves are causally deter-mined solely by the proper activity of the latter in the administration of justice. Further improvement of Article 376 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is proposed by including close relatives and family members of a judge, as well as representatives of inter-national judicial institutions to which Ukraine is a party, in the list of victims of interference with judicial activity.