JOURNALIST AS A VICTIM OF CRIMINAL OFFENSE UNDER ART. 171 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The article examines features of a victim of a criminal offense provided for by Art. 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In particular, general provisions on the victim in criminal law are highlighted. The current legislative and law-enforcement approaches to defining a journalist as a victim of a criminal misdemeanor are provided for in Art. 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The questions expressed in the legal literature regarding the possibility of recognizing a close relative (family member) as a victim of obstruction to the legal professional activity of a journalist were investigated; the author expressed his own position on this matter. Based on the research results, several conclusions have been formulated to improve the characteristics of the legal victim as part of the criminal offense provided for in Art. 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In particular, it is determined that the concept of “journalist” for applying this prohibition should be based on the definition of the journalist’s professional activity in the footnote to Art. 345-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. At the same time, it was noted that the legislative provisions regarding the journalist need unification, which is proposed to be carried out alternatively in one of two ways. It was also established that the journalist’s close relatives cannot be considered victims of the tort described in Art. 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, as they are covered by separate articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. A well-founded assumption has been made that in the case of criminal legislation reform, all offenses against journalists can be combined into a single norm, in which the journalist’s close relatives (family members) will be directly mentioned as alternative victims. It is also proposed to recognize the term “close person” as the optimal one for describing close relatives and family members who may be harmed during an attack on a journalist.