Кримінально-правова характеристика службового підроблення: генезис та сучасність

The article is devoted to the analysis of the formation in the past, development at the present stage and in the future of the provisions of regulatory legal acts that established liability for official forgery. The relevance of the study of the selected issues is justified by the author by the need to introduce qualitative changes to the law on criminal liability, in particular, in the part of the norm on official forgery, in contrast to those that have been introduced in recent decades. In the context of clarifying the normative content of the elements of official forgery in different historical periods of the development of domestic legislation, the relevant norms of criminal law contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1550, the Council Code of 1649, the Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments of 1845, the Criminal Code of 1922, the Criminal Code of 1960, and other historical legal monuments are analyzed. Attention is drawn to the peculiarities of individual elements of official forgery, their transformation in the historical paradigm, in particular, regarding the subject (from letters, decrees, etc., to official documents), the objective side (from re-sticking a seal, certifying a copy of a non-existent document, etc., to forging others by means (method)), the subject (from a deacon, subdeacon, etc., to an official) and the subjective side (the motive and goal sometimes acted as mandatory signs of the subjective side of official forgery, and sometimes as optional). Attention is paid to the content of all five laws that amended Article 366 of the Criminal Code, primarily from the point of view of the valid reasons and circumstances of their adoption, the impact of such changes on the elements of official forgery. Doctrinal approaches to the vision of criminal liability for official forgery in the future are analyzed, including in the project of the new criminal law of Ukraine. Conclusions are drawn, in particular, about the period of formation of the most similar to the modern structure of official forgery, casuistry, imperfect legislative technique, which are inherent in historical legal monuments and in some places have found their continuation in modern criminal law, the lack of systematic changes to the norm that establishes criminal liability for official forgery, and also proposed changes to criminal liability for official forgery.