Closure of criminal proceedings in case of establishment of circumstances precluding criminal illegality of an act

The article highlights the issue of closing criminal proceedings in case of establishing the circumstances which exclude criminal unlawfulness of an act. It is stated that Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine does not provide for the closure of criminal proceedings in connection with the establishment of a circumstance which excludes criminal unlawfulness of an act. The court practice has identified three options for resolving this situation: closure of criminal proceedings under clause 1, part 1, Article 284 (absence of a criminal offense event), clause 2, part 1, Article 284 (absence of a criminal offense), and delivery of an acquittal under clause 3, part 1, Article 343 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in the absence of closure of criminal proceedings under clauses 1 or 2, part 2, Article 284 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. Closure of criminal proceedings in connection with the establishment of circumstances that exclude criminal unlawfulness of an act is possible taking into account the legal nature of such circumstances, which should exclude the criminal unlawfulness of the act. The exclusion of criminal unlawfulness relates to such a feature of a criminal offense as an act. If the act contains other elements of a criminal offense (in particular, the consequences of the act), they fall under the element of a specific criminal offense. Given the above, the author proves that closure of criminal proceedings under paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Article 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine in case of establishing that an act committed by a person is not criminalized due to the presence of necessary defense does not fully correspond to the legal nature of such circumstances. The author supports the approach of scholars who propose to supplement Part 1 of Art. 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine with a new paragraph 2-1 as follows: «the act was committed in the presence of circumstances excluding its criminality».