Problematic issues of criminal law protection of professional activity of law enforcement officers in the Criminal Code of Ukraine

Criminal legal protection of the professional activities of law enforcement officers is an important component of ensuring law and order in society. Creating favorable conditions for law enforcement agencies, namely ensuring the protection of life and health of these employees, is one of the important components that further ensures the effective functioning of the state. In particular, the activities of law enforcement agencies are aimed at protecting national security, ensuring law and order, protecting the rights, freedoms and interests of citizens of the state and society, and implementing other functions of the state defined by law. However, the current state of regulation of this area in the Criminal Code of Ukraine demonstrates a number of problems that require further research. Despite the existence of provisions aimed at protecting law enforcement officers (e.g., Articles 342, 343, 345, 348, 349 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), the existing norms have significant shortcomings in law enforcement. The main challenges are ambiguity of terminology, insufficient specification of offenses, gaps in taking into account the specifics of law enforcement work, and imperfect approaches to criminalization and penalization of socially dangerous acts. The article analyzes the main problems of law enforcement, including difficulties with the qualification of criminal offenses due to the vagueness of the terms «resistance», «threat», «violence», etc. It is determined that the current legislation does not sufficiently take into account the increased risks to the life, health and property of law enforcement officers, as well as the need to protect their loved ones. The author provides statistical data demonstrating the limited effectiveness of law enforcement, since only about half of criminal proceedings in this area go to trial. The author analyzes the draft of the new Criminal Code of Ukraine, which proposes to update the approaches to determining the corpus delicti and the category of victims. In particular, the terms «representative of the authorities» and «person performing official duties in the interests of the state» are proposed as broader concepts that cover law enforcement officers. At the same time, some articles leave gaps that may lead to an underestimation of the severity of offenses. A number of recommendations for improving the legislation are proposed, including clarification of terminology, introduction of alternative types of punishment, and expansion of the rules on aggravating circumstances. Implementation of these changes will ensure more effective criminal legal protection of law enforcement officers and increase the level of law and order in the country.