RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AS A GROUND FOR VIOLATION OF EQUALITY OF CITIZENS (CRIMINAL ASPECT)

Abstract

Purpose. The issue of criminal liability for violation of equality of citizens has been the subject of researchby many Ukrainian scholars. There are two dissertation studies on the stated topic: by V. Pankevych,“Criminal and legal characteristics of violation of equality of citizens depending on their race, nationalityor attitude to religion”; by V. Kurafeev, “Criminal liability for violation of equality of citizens depending on their race, nationality, religious beliefs, disability and other grounds (Article 161 of the Criminal Codeof Ukraine: analysis of the elements of the crime)”. However, the issue of peculiarities of criminal liabilityfor insulting the feelings of citizens in connection with their religious beliefs, as well as for direct or indirectrestriction of rights or establishment of direct or indirect privileges of citizens on the basis of religious beliefsin the context of the legislation of the EU member states and the practice of the ECtHR is still insufficientlyresearched and fragmented, and therefore remains relevant. In addition, in the context of large-scale militaryoperations on the territory of Ukraine, the issue of criminal liability for violation of the equality of citizenshas become of great importance. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to investigate the issue of criminalliability for insulting the feelings of citizens in connection with their religious beliefs, as well as for direct orindirect restriction of rights or establishment of direct or indirect privileges of citizens on the basis of religiousbeliefs in the context of trends in the case law of national courts, the practice of the ECHR and partially tocover the comparative aspect of criminal law, within the scope of the stated topic, of the EU Member Statesand Ukraine.Methods. To achieve the research objective, the author used the following methods. The author usedthe dialectical method to clarify the content and concepts of: insult to feelings, direct and indirect restrictionof rights, establishment of direct and indirect privileges; the legal method to clarify the legislative provisions;and the comparative method to compare case law and EU legislation with national legislation.Results. For this purpose, the author examined the concept of religious beliefs, forms of offence tothe feelings of citizens in connection with their religious beliefs, motives for committing a criminal offence,analysed the practice of Ukrainian courts on bringing to criminal liability under Part 1 of Article 161of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on the grounds of “religious beliefs”, and the practice of the ECHR oninfringement of the freedom to hold religious beliefs.Conclusions. The author concludes that national courts have a fairly extensive practice of criminal liabilityfor insulting the feelings of citizens in connection with their religious beliefs. However, there is no such judicialpractice of criminal liability for direct or indirect restriction of rights or establishment of direct or indirectprivileges of citizens on the basis of religious beliefs, which does not indicate the absence of violations inthis context. In addition, the author emphasises the importance of establishing the motive for committinga criminal offence, as this will help to correctly qualify the offence.