THEORETICAL AND LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK REGULATING THE INSTITUTION OF PARDON AND AMNESTY: LEGAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the theoretical and legislative framework of pardon and amnesty institutions, their problematic aspects, and legal characteristics. Despite being among the oldest legal mechanisms, these institutions play a significant role in regulating criminal justice relations, as they have undergone structural changes and acquired new tasks that involve ensuring principles such as humanity, justice, equality, legality, as well as methods like incentivization and prevention. The identified main problems associated with these institutions include ensuring the adaptation of convicts after pardon, ensuring justice and equality, societal perception, abuse and disregard of amnesty and pardon, normative consolidation, limited quantitative functioning of amnesty and pardon, i.e., the scope of subjects, and the absence of a definition of pardon and amnesty in the normative part of the legal system. The study examines the legislative acts of domestic legislation and foreign countries, such as the Constitution of Ukraine, the Constitution of Switzerland, the Constitution of Italy, the Constitution of Iceland, the Constitution of Poland, the Decree of the President of Ukraine “On the Procedure for Pardoning” with changes introduced by the Decree of the President No. 373/2021 dated August 20, 2021; the Order “On the Approval of the Procedure for Submitting Materials to the Office of the President of Ukraine on Petitions for Pardon of Convicts and the Execution of Presidential Pardon Decrees” with changes introduced by the Order of the Ministry of Justice No. 3219/5 dated September 13, 2021. The Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine with changes introduced by Law No. 2849-IX dated December 13, 2022; the Criminal Code of Ukraine with changes introduced by Laws No. 3000-IX dated March 21, 2023; the Law of Ukraine “On the Application of Amnesty in Ukraine”; the Criminal Procedure Code of Poland. Furthermore, the concepts of amnesty and pardon are discussed from a theoretical aspect using dictionaries from various fields, predominantly legal and dictionaries of foreign origin. The functioning of these institutions in Ukraine, European countries, their peculiarities and differences are considered. The attitudes of scholars and society towards these institutions are examined, and the views of authors such as A. Muzik, S. Shkola, B. Telefanko, A. Berezovskyi, V. Honcharenko, M. Korzhanskyi, M. Melnyk, and M. Khovroniuk are analyzed. The author expresses their opinions on the role of pardon and amnesty institutions in society.