Procedural status of a victim: challenges and ways of improving

Abstract

Changes in the criminal procedural legislation that occurred in 2012 in Ukraine, created the necessary prerequisites for the functioning of the legal, social state and enforcement of procedural rights of participants in criminal proceedings. Objects that are taken under the protection of criminal offences with the norms of the CPC are: personality; society; state. The objects of protection are rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of participants of criminal proceedings. The current criminal procedure code of Ukraine determines the order in criminal proceedings and contains innovations, which, until recently, were not enshrined in the provisions of the criminal procedure law. One of them is the dedication of a separate paragraph of Chapter 3 of the CPC to the victim, which is evidence of selfimportance that is given to the victim in criminal proceedings. In accordance to Art. 55 of the Code of criminal procedure, a victim in criminal proceedings can be a physical person who has been damaged morally, physically or whose property has been damaged by a criminal offence, as well as a legal entity, whose property has been damaged by a criminal offence. They can be citizens of Ukraine, foreigners and persons without citizenship. A legal entity is determined on the basis of the provisions of articles 80–112 of the Civil Code. It is pointed out quite correctly that a legal entity injured by a crime has the right to submit only a civil action for recovery of such damages in criminal proceedings, that is not equal to recognizing it the victim with appropriate legal status. The rights of the victims are significantly wider than the rights of the plaintiff, who has only the right to submit a civil action. So fixing on the constitutional level the equality of all forms of ownership existing today in the criminal procedural legislation in the case of causing damage by the offense, a physical person is more secure than a legal entity because having submitted a civil action, he uses dual legal status of the victim and the plaintiff, while a legal entity under similar conditions has only the legal status of the plaintiff, whose scope of rights is much narrower than the rights of the victim. It should be noted, that provisions of the current criminal procedure legislation of Ukraine regulating the status of the victim are analyzed, the issues of protection of rights of the victim are discussed, and the ways of its improvement are offered in this article. Domestic and foreign regulatory legal acts of Latvia, Republic of Moldova and Kazakhstan relating to procedural status of the victim are thoroughly analyzed as well.