Differentiation of liability for committing administrative offenses
Authors: Ostapenko Oleksiy 
Published: September 2023

The Ukraine’s acquisition of the status of a "candidate state" of member states of the European Union, as well as the influence and observance of the international legislation on human rights and freedoms, significantly complements the administrative and legal status of citizens of our country. The ratification by the Ukrainian state of the European Convention on Human Rights (1997) and other international legal acts related to rights and freedoms opened a new stage in the development of national legal science, especially regarding the protection of the rights of natural persons [1, p. 15‒32]. Existing approaches in the administrative and legal science to the protection of individual rights, as well as to the application of measures of coercive influence to the violator, are closely related to the characterization of a natural person as a participant in the administrative and legal relations existing in society. Note that Chapter 11 of the Constitution of Ukraine contains a non-exhaustive list of rights, freedoms and responsibilities of a human and a citizen [2]. The legislator also uses the term "person" in order to specify the individuality of a natural person and his/her legal status with the designation of his/her features. At the same time, the presence of terms characterizing the administrative and legal status of an individual always requires clarification of the relationship between such terms as "natural person", "citizen", as well as their legal impact on the differentiation of liability of subjects who commit administrative offenses. Each of the mentioned terms has different interpretations according to the object and subject of research, which in general indicate the historical, social, cultural and other attainments of a person who possesses socially determined and individual qualities that are manifested in the intellect, emotions and will of a person. When characterizing a natural person, it is worth noting the social connections and relations, features and qualities that have social and individual significance. These include: the ability to think and make conscious and not instinctive decisions; individuality (talent, education, profession, preferences, etc.); freedom, that is, the right to choose from the options of behavior provided by society, which ensures the realization of personal interests and does not violate the rights of other subjects; responsibility to society [3, p. 630]. It is worth noting that the concepts of "person" and "personality" are not equivalent to each other, especially in terms of defining a human as a person. In our case, we may be talking about the insanity of a person who, at the time of committing illegal actions or inaction, is in a state of insanity, that is, could not be aware of his/her actions or control them due to a chronic mental illness, a temporary disorder of mental activity, mental retardation or another medical condition [4]. The social and individual characteristics of a natural person testify to its administrative and legal status, the essence of which is the establishment by the norms of administrative law of the subject's position, which is characterized by subjective rights, legal obligations and liability of the subject in the field of the public administration [5, p. 405]. Therefore, it is relevant to characterize the differentiation of the liability of subjects for committing administrative offenses, the administrative and legal status of which in most cases is asymmetric, since individuals act within the limits of rights and freedoms granted to them.