Сonceptual aspect of «official person» as a special entity in criminal law

According to the enshrined Article 21 of the Constitution of Ukraine, all citizens are equal before the law, however, this does not exclude a certain form of inequality before the law based on the provisions of the law itself. Investigating the criminal-legal direction of development of inequalities established by law, cases are analyzed where the law provides that only those persons who, along with the general characteristics of the subject of a criminal offense (reaching the age of criminal responsibility and sanity), must possess some additional characteristics are liable for some criminal offenses. The article is devoted to the study of the concept of such a special subject of criminal offense as an official. First of all, cases of normative definition of this concept at the level of criminal legislation (its general and special parts) are analyzed. The authors, taking into account approaches in criminal law science and law enforcement practice, justify the need to change the legislative formulations that define the concept of an official, іn particular, the expediency of using categories of legal entities of public and private law instead of a casuistic list of certain elements of their plural number, the exclusion of duplicative signs of an official from the relevant provisions of the special part of the law on criminal liability, is proven. Attention is also paid to the main features of the concept of an official under domestic criminal law (performance by a person of organizational, managerial and administrative-economic functions, functions of a representative of the authorities), and the relationship of an official with related concepts (official, authorized person, person authorized to perform functions of the state or local government, etc). The directions of further scientific research in this context are indicated, taking into account the issues of classification of officials.