The ratio of coercion and responsibility in the criminal process
Authors: Bilokin Ruslan 
Published: March 2024

For a long time, there has been a scientific debate among legal scholars regarding the place of criminal procedural coercion in the area of procedural responsibility. The reason, in my opinion, is the etymology of this question through the prism of the socio-political development of the country and the heritage that Ukraine received along with independence.

The identification of these concepts became possible only in the retrospective study, at the same time, procedural challenges of the criminal type give a new impetus to this discussion and expand the scope of the study of the specified problem. The criminal-procedural protection of the participants in criminal proceedings dictates requirements for strengthening criminal-procedural coercion on the part of state-authorized bodies and the court. The close interaction of the concepts of “procedural responsibility”, “procedural sanctions” and “procedural coercion”, according to some scientists (for example, Z. Zinatullin), give reasons to consider them to be combined into a single category. At the same time, some scientists (V. Rozhnova, Z. Kovryga) are convinced that the forms, limits, order of application and direction of actions are the circumstances that distinguish them from one another and provide an opportunity for independent study. However, there is a group of scientists who believe that criminal-procedural coercion is a type of criminal-procedural responsibility, and directly sanction is considered as a structure of criminal procedural norm (A. Blagodyr).

That is why, in the article, the author tries to investigate the problems of the relationship between criminal procedural responsibility, measures of criminal procedural coercion and sanctions. I draw your attention to the fact that in the theory of the criminal process, both the sanctions of criminal procedural norms and the measures of criminal procedural coercion are diverse.

Establishing such a model of behavior, the state provided not only the fact of punishment itself (punitive or penal sanctions), but also the possibility of compensation for the actions of its authorized bodies (compensatory sanctions) or even bringing back to the original state or restoring the procedural status (restorative) of the persons involved in the process or who were affected by issues related to the process.

Another feature of these legal relations is that each criminal offense is associated with the use of criminal procedural coercion. At the same time, criminal procedural coercion goes beyond the scope of the committed criminal offense and can be applied outside its jurisdiction. For example, the plea of a witness as a procedural figure and the plea of an eyewitness who has not yet received procedural status are closely related to the concept of coercion, although they differ in the nature of their application.

That is why a number of scientists consider it necessary to narrow the range of coercive measures, linking them with a procedural form and criminal procedural responsibility (I. Petrukhin).

The author calls for a scientific discussion in order to narrow the circle of opinions and theories on this issue.