Призначення покарання за правилами статті 692 КК України: характеристика правил та питання пеналізації

The article is devoted to the analysis of new rules for the imposition of punishment, enshrined in Part 1 of Article 692 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, – the imposition of a milder punishment than provided for by law in cases of concluding a plea agreement in criminal proceedings regarding corruption criminal offenses or criminal offenses related to corruption. It is substantiated that these rules are a new special ground of punishment imposition, as they allow the imposition of a punishment that goes beyond the minimum limit provided for by the sanction of the article of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and therefore are an exception to the first general ground of punishment imposition (Point 1 of Part 1 of Article 65 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The correlation of the special grounds of sentencing, enshrined in Articles 69 and 692 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, is investigated as well, and the conclusion that they are in conflict with each other is substantiated. In addition, the legislatively defined conditions for the application of the provisions of Part 1 of Article 692 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine are analyzed and it is emphasized that the only determining condition for the application of this special ground of punishment imposition is the fulfillment of the requirements of Point 2 or Point 21 of Part 4 of Article 469 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine. In this context, the author expresses reservations regarding such a requirement for concluding a plea agreement as the absence of signs of the commission of a criminal offense in complicity. It is emphasized that under certain conditions, the provisions of Part 1 of Article 692 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine may be applied in the absence of any mandatory requirements for the characteristics of the offender or his post-criminal behavior, which would significantly reduce the severity of the criminal offense committed and necessitate the imposition of a milder punishment than provided for by law. Finally, arguments are presented in favor of the statement that the provisions of Part 1 of Article 692 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine contradict the approaches to penalization of corruption criminal offenses and criminal offenses related to corruption, and actually negate the penalization, since they allow for a deviation from the sanction without establishing limits for mitigating the punishment, except for only indicating the limits established for a certain type of punishment in the General Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.