Criminal legal prohibition of illegal militant and armed formations in the draft of Criminal code of Ukraine: existing problems and solutions
Authors: Akimov Mykhailo Oleksandrovych 
Published: January 2025

A critical review of the provisions of the draft of Criminal code of Ukraine regarding the creation of illegal armed formation, participation in it or facilitation of its activity has been made in this article. Based on the results of the research conducted, certain shortcomings of the norms under consideration have been singled out; the author’s vision of their improvement has been formulated as well. First of all, it has been determined that the way of regulating responsibility for the abovementioned action envisaged by the Working Group on the Development of Criminal Law of the Commission of Legal Reform Under the President of Ukraine in the draft of Criminal code of Ukraine may lead to incomplete criminalization since the activity related to the illegal militant formation has not been stipulated as a criminal offence. It has been also emphasized that the illegal militant formation (as well as an armed one) is also prohibited on the constitutional level; moreover, the Constitution of Ukraine has been defined as the basis of Criminal code of Ukraine (according to Part 2 of Art. 1.1.1. of the draft of the mentioned legal act). Furthermore, the necessity to clarify the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the illegal armed formation has been stressed. As to this matter, it has been noted that the main feature of the formation in question is its external similarity to the formations provided by the legislation of Ukraine. Consequently, it is more reasonable to consider the number of participants of such formation corresponding to the primary military unit (squad, crew and so on). Since no military unit exists without a commanding officer and subordinates, as well as without at least basic training (firearms, tactic, medical etc.) it therefore should be characterized also by qualitative features, e.g. hierarchy and professionalism. Attention has been paid separately to such characteristics of the formation under consideration as weapon. Due to the specifics of an illegal armed formation, its participants, in addition to weapon, may also have different types of military technics and equipment (listed in Part 6 of Article 10.1.1. of the draft of Criminal code of Ukraine). However, in the absence of a corresponding indication of this in articles 1.4.1. or 7.1.9 of the draft of Criminal code of Ukraine the law enforcement agencies will be deprived of the possibility to carry out a proper criminal-legal qualification of the analyzed actions. An attention has been paid to the impracticality of specifying a certain purpose as a mandatory feature of the creation and operation of an illegal armed formation in the criminal legal norm because it may narrow the scope of the legislation on criminal responsibility and create unnecessary complications in the criminal legal assessment of the action committed. Taking the abovementioned into account and also striving to use simplified and unified terminology in the draft of Criminal code of Ukraine, another term to designate the formation under consideration has been suggested — illegal paramilitary formation. Consequently, a new version of the relevant and some other articles of the draft of Criminal Code of Ukraine has been proposed.

Key words: armed formation, militant formation, weapon, purpose, illegal paramilitary activity