The institution of administrative liability is based on the democratic principles of influence on people who have committed illegal, culpable (intentional or negligent) actions or inactions that encroach on state or public order, property, rights and freedoms of citizens, on the established management procedure, administrative offences (misdemeanours) for which administrative liability is established by the law.
In view of the provisions of Part 1 of paragraph 22 of Article 92 of the Constitution of Ukraine, administrative responsibility is mostly understood as the application of administrative penalties to violators of generally binding business rules and other areas, which entails severe financial or moral consequences for these people [1]. Being an independent type of legal responsibility, administrative liability is based on the general principles of legal responsibility, which make up a single complex of interrelated and mutually conditioned provisions. Therefore, the principles of administrative liability are fundamental ideas established by the norms of administrative law, which reflect the essence, purpose and content of administrative-legal responsibility, the regularities of its development and implementation [2, С. 544].
The principles of administrative responsibility include: rule of law, legality, expediency, reasonableness, inevitability, timeliness, justice, humanism, individualization of punishment, appropriateness of guilt and punishment. Recognition of the rule of law as an administrative principle means that the laws of the state, as well as their application, must correspond to the law as a measure of general and equal freedom and justice for all. In addition, laws should limit the arbitrariness of individuals, legal entities, and the state for the common good.
The principle of the rule of law means that the freedom of citizens must be ensured by such a legal order, when no one is forced to do something not prescribed by the law, and a person, his/her rights and freedoms are recognized as the highest value [3, С. 67].
In one of its decisions dated December 22, 2010, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine noted that administrative responsibility in Ukraine and the procedure for bringing to administrative responsibility are based on constitutional principles and legal presumptions, which are conditioned by the recognition and operation of the principle of the rule of law in Ukraine. The Constitution of Ukraine has the highest legal force; laws and other normative legal acts are adopted on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine and must comply with it [4].
The main principle of administrative responsibility, like any other type of legal responsibility, is the principle of legality. The essence of the principle of legality in relation to administrative responsibility is that, firstly, prosecution can be carried out exclusively by the relevant bodies, which are given these powers by law. Secondly, the procedure for bringing to administrative responsibility should be regulated by relevant regulatory and legal acts. And, thirdly, bringing to administrative responsibility should take place on the grounds provided by law [5, C. 71].
The principle of expediency is that the application of measures of administrative responsibility should be expedient in a specific case. So, for example, due to the insignificance of the act, a warning may be applied to a person, instead of the sanction prescribed by the law. Under Article 22 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences, the body (official) authorized to consider the case, if the administrative offence is insignificant, may release the offender from administrative liability and limit himself to a verbal remark [6].
The principle of the inevitability of administrative responsibility is to ensure the effectiveness of administrative law, the effectiveness of its influence on administrative-legal relations and their subjects. The main content of this principle is revealed in the fact that any offence must be detected in a time manner, the subject guilty of its commission must be established and held accountable in accordance with the law. The principle of timeliness of administrative responsibility establishes the rule of bringing the offender to administrative responsibility within the statutory limitation period, i.e. for such a period of time as is sufficient from the point of view of common sense for liability to arise, remote from the fact of the offence.
Article 38 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences regulates the statute of limitations for bringing a person to administrative responsibility. In particular, it states that an administrative fine can be imposed no later than two months after the day the offence was discovered [6]. The principle of justice of administrative responsibility means that the establishment of administrative responsibility should be fair and meet all the ideas (criteria) of justice as a moral and legal category. Under Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine, laws and other normative legal acts do not have retroactive effect in time, except when they mitigate or cancel the responsibility of a person. This principle also means that no one can be brought twice to the same type of administrative responsibility for the same offence (Art. 61 of the Constitution of Ukraine) [1].
The principle of individualization of administrative responsibility requires responsibility between the measure of influence on the chosen offender and the degree of public safety of administrative proceedings. The legal regulation of this principle is determined by the provisions of Part 2 of Art. 33 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences: "when imposing an administrative penalty, the nature of the proceedings, the identity of the violator, the degree of his guilt, property status, mitigating and aggravating circumstances are taken into account"[6].
Last, but not least, it is the principle of correspondence of guilt and punishment. This principle requires mandatory consideration of all the circumstances of the committed illegal act and directly of the person who committed it, in order to determine the type of measure of administrative penalty. The legislator, giving an alternative to the types of penalty, establishes its kind of minimum and maximum, which makes it possible to determine the amount of penalty, taking into account all the circumstances of the case.
Summing up, the above-mentioned principles are important indicators of the effectiveness of implementing the norms of administrative law in Ukraine.
Since the principles of administrative liability are ideas and the most important provisions, they are an expression of the objective needs of a person and society, contribute to the improvement of the legal culture of citizens and, in a generalized form, express not only the nature of administrative law, but also determine the direction and the most essential features of the regulation of the activities of state authorities in relation to observance of individual rights.
References:
1. Конституція України: Закон України від 28. 06. 1996 р. // Відомості Верховної Ради України. – 1996 – № 30. – ст.141 (зі змінами) // [Електронний ресурс]. – URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/254%D0%BA/96-%D0%B2%D1%80#Text
2. Адміністративне право України: [підручник] / За ред. Ю. П. Битяка. – Х., 2007. – 544 с.
3. Мельник Р.С. Загальне адміністративне право: навч. посіб./ Р.С. Мельник, В. М. Бевзенко ; за заг. ред. Р. С. Мельника. – К. : Ваіте, 2014. – Ст. 67 – 68 URL: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/d/c/358156.pdf
4. Рішення КСУ у справі про призначення судом більш м‘якого покарання) від 2 листопада 2004 р.// [Електронний ресурс]. – Режим доступу: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/v015p710-04#Text
5. Гришина Н. В. Законність та індивідуалізація як основоположні принципи адміністративної відповідальності // Вісник Харківського національного університету імені В.Н. Каразіна. – 2016. - №21. –С. 70 – 72
6. Кодекс адміністративного судочинства України // Відомості Верховної Ради України. – 2005 – № 35 – 36, № 37. – ст.446 (зі змінами та доповненнями) //[Електронний ресурс]. – Режим доступу: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2747-15#Text
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Науковий керівник: Natalia Hrynya, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
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