“Pravova derzhava”. Issue 36 (2025), pages 577–585.
DOI: 10.33663/0869-2491-2025-36-577-585
Nersesian Armen
Combat immunity in criminal law: legal nature and criminal law definition
The institution of combat immunity as a criminal law phenomenon is quite new, and the concept of immunity in jurisprudence as a whole is a poorly researched concept, although they are provided for by criminal law. The problem of legislative consolidation of the norm on combat immunity became particularly acute with the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation troops into Ukraine in 2022, in the conditions of which it became necessary to involve all state power structures that were forced to cause harm to the aggressor in countering armed aggression.
The purpose of this study was to determine the legal nature and concept of combat immunity as an institution of criminal law.
As a result, it was established that the immunity provided for in Art. 43-1 of the Criminal Code should extend to civilians who exercise their own right to repel and deter armed aggression of the Russian Federation and/or other states. Therefore, combat immunity as a circumstance that excludes the criminal illegality of an act should be provided for by a separate norm, which should also be included in Section VIII of the General Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
This study proved the imperfection of the newly introduced norms in the regulatory legal acts of Ukraine that regulate the concept and conditions for the application of combat immunity. The legal nature of the institution of combat immunity was determined: it was established that this is a circumstance that excludes the criminal illegality of an act, and not a basis for exempting the relevant persons from criminal liability. In this regard, an improved definition of the concept of combat immunity was proposed. Based on the above, it was proposed to include a separate article “Combat immunity” in the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which can be defined as a special type of extreme necessity (Article 39-1) or a special type of act associated with risk (Article 42-1). This study does not exhaust the problems associated with the implementation of combat immunity in criminal law, but opens up prospects for further research in this area, in particular, regarding the need to create a separate military court, which in its activities will take into account the specifics of military offenses, including criminal ones.
Key words: combat immunity, necessary defense, extreme necessity, justified risk, armed conflict, hostilities, armed aggression, military personnel, criminal liability, defense of Ukraine.
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