THREAT (DANGER) OF HARM AS AN ELEMENT OF A CRIME VICTIM

Abstract

The article examines the issue of recognizing a person as a victim in case of causing him not only real damage, but also in case of creating a danger or threatening to cause it. Provisions of the current Criminal Code of Ukraine, the project of new Criminal Code of Ukraine, national judicial practice are taken into account. The lack of unity in the views of scientists on the threat or danger of harm was established (currently it is considered as a type of harm caused by a criminal offense or a socially dangerous consequence caused by this delict or as a component of such harm or a socially dangerous consequence). The basic provisions on the “delict of danger” are considered – actions that create a potential danger or threat to the objects of criminal law protection, and therefore are rec- ognized as socially dangerous and criminally illegal. It has been established that the threat/danger of harm is a type of socially danger- ous consequence or harm which relates to the real possibility of causing substantial socially dangerous consequences or substantial harm. Creating a danger is essentially sim- ilar to creating a threat, i.e., in fact, those are terms that denote the same criminal law concept. Each criminal offense causes certain harm, but only certain types of harm are recognized as its feature, as indicated by the content of the article’s disposition. This is due to both the expediency and the possibility of compensation. It has been argued that a victim in the criminal law sense will be a person in cases of both actual harm and creation of a danger or threat of harm, but only in those cases where such danger or threat is directly mentioned in the disposition of the article of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.