On the objective necessity of strengthening criminal liability for obtaining unlawful benefit under martial law in Ukraine

This scientific article provides a criminal-legal analysis of the objective side of the crime related to the acceptance of an offer, promise or obtaining unlawful benefit by an official under martial law in Ukraine, and also proves the necessity of strengthening criminal liability for the commission of the specified criminal offense, taking into account the absence of such a qualifying feature in the current Criminal Code (CC). In particular, it was established that in 2022, at the legislative level, the specified Code was quite reasonably supplemented with a special qualifying feature “committing an act in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency”, which, however, did not apply to a criminal offense for which criminal liability is provided for in Article 368 of the Criminal Code “Acceptance of an offer, promise or receipt of an unlawful benefit by an official”. In this regard, it has been proven that the specified legal gap determines the development of negative socially dangerous trends and phenomena in conditions of martial law, which, in turn, not only increase the level of criminal activity of officials, but also create potential and real threats of encroachments on objects of national security of Ukraine. In addition, attention is drawn to the fact that due to the existing determinants that are directly related to the cause-and-effect relationship in an offense related to obtaining an unlawful benefit, the need to increase the efficiency of the procedural activities of investigators and prosecutors and, in this regard, to use all available evidence and investigation methods defined in current legislation is objectively determined. Taking into account the above circumstance, as well as the preventive role of the special qualifying feature in the form of “committing acts in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency”, which it plays in those components of criminal offenses that provide for it in the relevant articles of the Criminal Code, this scientific work substantiates the need for legislative modification of the objective side of Art. 368 of the said Code by, in particular, supplementing it with the above-mentioned special qualifying feature.