CRIMINAL PROTECTION OF THE ELECTION SYSTEM AND VOTING RIGHTS OF CITIZENS: COMPARATIVE-LEGAL ASPECT

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the peculiarities of the criminal law protection of the electoral system and the electoral rights of citizens under foreign legislation. The criminal law acts of neighboring countries and individual countries of Eastern Europe are selected for the study: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Republic of Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, as well as individual countries of the Romano- Germanic and continental type of law are selected for the study. Peculiarities of criminal law norms, composition of encroachments on a certain sphere of social relations according to the legislation of the specified countries in comparison with domestic prescriptions aimed at criminal law protection of the electoral system are considered. It has been established that, in contrast to the considered regulatory legal acts in the criminal field, the criminal law of Ukraine contains a wider range of criminal offenses in terms of encroachment on the electoral system and electoral and referendum rights of citizens. It was concluded that in the mechanism of legal regulation, greater importance is attached to the introduction of legal guarantees for the implementation of electoral and referendum rights of citizens, among which criminal liability occupies a special place as one of the types of legal responsibility for preventing the implementation of such forms of direct democracy as elections and referendums. It was determined that the electoral legislation of Ukraine and the corresponding legislation of the CIS countries have both similar and distinctive features to a certain extent, especially in the part of the CIS member countries, which is caused by a number of circumstances of the socio-political formation and development of such states. It is noteworthy that there is no such similarity in terms of comparison with EU member states. It can be seen that the domestic criminal law legislation on ensuring the electoral rights of citizens generally corresponds to foreign models, and in certain aspects has a more positive experience of criminal law protection.