CONCEPTUAL ISSUES OF QUALIFYING TERRORIST CRIMINAL OFFENSES IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT

Abstract

The article examines problematic issues related to the criminal-legal response to terrorist crimes in the context of increasing threats to the constitutional order, sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of our state. It was established that under the current geopolitical realities, the existing system of such countermeasures does not meet the challenges and threats of today. It is argued that many socially dangerous acts placed in Chapter IX of the Criminal Code of Ukraine are able to encroach on the national security of our state at the same time. Accordingly, a similar configuration of emerging threats to the specified object of criminal law protection requires its rethinking, additions or changes. It is noted that in the conditions of the existing threat to the constitutional system, sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of our state (taking into account the existing Russian-Ukrainian military conflict), the problem of neutralization and countering terrorist crimes is more than relevant at the current stage of the development of our statehood, and the effective application the norms of criminal legislation, which provide for responsibility for the commission of such criminal offenses, have a particularly important preventive and political significance. It is emphasized that at the forefront of combating terrorist-oriented crimes are the legal norms that provide for the criminal-legal protection of public safety. However, taking into account the existing objective reality and the rapid change of geopolitical reality, terrorist-oriented crimes have already gone far beyond encroachments against public security, including encroaching on the foundations of national security. It is argued that the problem of the validity and necessity of the criminal law protection of political power in the theory and philosophy of criminal law causes a rather interesting discussion in that the presence of similar criminal law prohibitions in the domestic legislation, on the one hand, is natural and quite justified, and on the other on the other hand, the material component of the acts in question is characterized to a greater extent by political than legal expediency. It is argued that in the conditions of the ongoing armed conflict, the question of the need to rethink and qualitatively change the national criminal legislation in order to properly protect and protect our statehood has become particularly acute, because the existing regulatory and legal protection of the foundations of national security does not fully correspond to the realities of today, it would make it possible to adequately counteract the existing challenges in this area of our state’s life. In order to more effectively protect the foundations of national security, it is necessary to highlight the circle of socially dangerous encroachments, which are directly or even indirectly capable of harming the specified object of criminal law protection.