Protection from Criminal Offences as the Objective of Criminal Procedure
Authors: Novozhylov Viktor 
Published: August 2022

The study focuses on the issue of determination of protection from the criminal offences concept as the objective of criminal procedure. The concept of protection can be defined widely and narrowly. Protection as a wide notion means certain activities aimed at ensuring, implementing, restoring the rights and freedoms of victims or the interests of society. All criminal procedures can be considered as the action of legal protection enforcement according to this definition. Protection as a narrow notion means the activity of the subject who is external to the criminal offence aimed against this offence. The status of the person carrying out the counteraction to the offence is the criterion of differentiation between defence and protection from delinquent offence.The author analyses the current legal construct of the objective of criminal procedure “protection from crime and misdemeanour” and concluded that it is not entirely accurate due to the fact that it is impossible to establish and prove the presence of all necessary conditions of crime or misdemeanour at the time of criminal procedural counteractions is needed to be issued.Substantiation of illegality (that is the delinquent offence is prescribed directly in the Criminal Code of Ukraine) as a necessary and sufficient condition of the criminal offence which should be counteracted and eliminated to fulfil the protection as the objective of criminal procedure was provided.The possibility to use social danger as a condition for the enforcement of the protection from delinquent offences as the objective of criminal procedure is analysed. The author stated that social danger of the offence should be evaluated only by a legislative body in the process of criminal law amendments including changes in the classification of criminal offenses. The social danger evaluation of the criminal offence the illegality of which is prescribed in the Criminal Code of Ukraine is not the objective of criminal procedure in any of its stages because social danger is not a formalised notion, unlike conditions of criminal offence that are prescribed in the Criminal Code and should be proven on the trial.The author’s definition of “the protection from criminal offences as the objective of criminal procedure” is derived, according to which this is the activity of the subject who is external to the criminal offence and whose authority or rights are prescribed by criminal procedural norms or initiate the enforcement of these norms, and this activity is aimed at creation of obstacles for a certain delinquent offence the illegality of which is determined by criminal law, suppresses it, prevents or minimizes negative consequences of it.An overview of objects of protection in criminal procedure is provided. The author proposed to attribute the individual, community, society and the Ukrainian People as objects of protection from criminal offences.The author states that only certain subjects can realize the protection from the criminal offence as the objective of the criminal procedure. They include (1) officials who have the right to arrest an offender, (2) any person who has apprehended an offender immediately after the offence, (3) investigating judge, (4) prosecutor, (5) investigator, (6) inquirer, (7) operative units on detection of crime that performed preprocedural investigative activity when they appeal to initiate the criminal procedural pre-trial investigation of the punished-by-law preparation for a criminal offense, (8) individuals and legal entities that appeal for initiation of pre-trial investigation of the punished-by-law preparation for a criminal offense or of the continuing or ongoing criminal offense. The concept of “atypical counter-protection” was proposed, which means protection of individuals, community, society, and the Ukrainian People from illegal delinquent offences performed by empowered subjects of criminal procedure.The author suggests two criteria for effectiveness evaluation of criminal procedural activity on the protection from criminal offences: (1) its timeliness and (2) proportionality of applied measures and the criminal offence.