Concepts and general characteristics of the state secret in the criminal legislation of Ukraine Поняття та загальна характеристика державної таємниці у кримінальному законодавстві України

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Concepts and general characteristics of the state secret in the criminal legislation of Ukraine

Поняття та загальна характеристика державної таємниці у кримінальному законодавстві України

Didkivska H.V.,

Candidate of Law, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology

of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine

Stegniy R.R.,

Graduate Student of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology

of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine

The basic concepts of the institution of State secrets in the criminal legislation of Ukraine have been analysed, and certain norms that provide criminal legal protection of State secrets in Ukraine have been analysed. An attempt has been made to consider issues of criminal legal protection of State secrets in Ukraine, as well as to determine ways to improve the relevant conceptual apparatus. Mentioned in the article, it is necessary to solve in order to improve the legislation on state secrets. The analysis of the legislation of many foreign countries also shows that the violation of the regime of State secrets is recognized as an illegal act aimed at undermining the foundations of national security. A number of conclusions have been reached during the disclosure of the topic.

Thus, it has been determined that, in order to improve criminal law, the terminology used requires clarification. In particular, the use in legislation of the terms “classified information” and “classified information” in some cases as identical and in others as unequal in content may lead to ambiguity in the interpretation and characterization of the act. It has been observed that the terms “protection” and protection” of state secrets are not interchangeable, as may seem at first glance. On the contrary, protection measures are evidence of the effectiveness of security activities. Therefore, it is proposed to consider “protection of State secrets” as an indicator of the efficiency and effectiveness of the functioning of the system of State secrets.

It was noted that the protection of State secrets should be reflected in the legislation, as the functioning of a unified legal terminology in the field of protection of State secrets in particular and in the legal sphere in general is an important factor in the reform and harmonization of legislation. Analysis of normative and legal acts containing norms of regulation of the mechanism of protection of state secrets, As well as studies of foreign legislation suggest that criminal law, Providing for liability for violation of the regime of protection of State secrets, shall be transferred from section XIV “Crimes in the field of protection of State secrets, Inviolability of state borders, ensuring conscription and mobilization” in Section I “Crimes against the foundations of national security” of the Special Part of this Code as having direct significance for national security.

Key words: rules of law, state secret, crime, criminal legislation.

Проаналізовано основні поняття інституту державної таємниці в кримінальному законодавстві України, проаналізовано певні норми, які забезпечують кримінально-правовий захист державної таємниці в Україні. Здійснено спробу розглянути питання кримінально-правового захисту державної таємниці в Україні, а також визначити шляхи вдосконалення відповідного понятійного апарату. Порушені у статті питання потребують розв'язання з метою вдосконалення законодавства про державну таємницю. Аналіз законодавства багатьох зарубіжних країн свідчить також про визнання порушення режиму схоронності державної таємниці протиправним діянням, спрямованим на підрив основ національної безпеки.

У процесі розкриття теми зроблено низку висновків. Так, визначено, що з метою вдосконалення кримінально- правового законодавства потребує уточнень вживана термінологія. Зокрема, використання в законодавстві термінів «таємна інформація» і «секретна інформація» у деяких випадках як ідентичних, а в інших - як нерівнозначних за змістом може призвести до неоднозначності тлумачення та кваліфікації діяння.

Зауважено, що терміни «захист» і «охорона» державної таємниці не є взаємозамінними, як це може видатися на перший погляд. Навпаки, заходи захисту є свідченням ефективності охоронної діяльності. Тому «захист державної таємниці» запропоновано розглядати як показник результативності та ефективності функціонування системи державної таємниці. Зазначено, що потання захисту державної таємниці слід відобразити у законодавстві, оскільки функціонування єдиної юридичної термінології в сфері захисту державної таємниці зокрема та в правовій сфері загалом - важливий чинник реформування і гармонізації законодавства.

Аналіз нормативно-правових актів, які містять норми регулювання механізму охорони державної таємниці, а також вивчення зарубіжного законодавства дають підстави стверджувати, що кримінально-правові норми, які передбачають відповідальність за порушення режиму охорони державної таємниці, мають бути перенесені з Розділу XIV «Злочини у сфері охорони державної таємниці, недоторканності державних кордонів, забезпечення призову та мобілізації» у Розділ I «Злочини проти основ національної безпеки» Особливої частини цього Кодексу як такі, що мають безпосереднє значення для забезпечення національної безпеки.

Ключові слова: норми права, державна таємниця, злочин, кримінальне законодавство.

Statement of a problem.Types of information with limited access are defined in the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information”: confidential information, official information and secret information [3]. It is the latter that is translated into Russian as “secret information”. According to the provisions of article 8 of the said Law, information to which access is restricted in accordance with this Law and the disclosure of which may cause damage to the person, society and the State is a secret. Information containing State, professional, banking, pre-trial investigation and other statutory secrets is considered secret.

The functioning of the institution of State secrets is regulated by a number of normative and legal acts. In addition, the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides for certain provisions that provide criminal legal protection of State secrets in Ukraine. At the same time, there is a need for unity and consistency of the conceptual apparatus of the said institution, as well as adequacy of its legal regulation and protection.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The problem of improving both the institution of state secrets and the relevant legislation is not new. The relevant question is devoted to the scientific works of G.A. Androschuk, A.F. Bantyshev, A.M. Guza,O.I. Ioffe, Yu. Kapitsa, A.V. Lepeshki, VA. Tarhov,A. Fatyanova, N.M. Fontash, A.A. Shamsovaya. But, despite such interest by a subject during quite long period, still it is not solved single controversial issues, and it proves that the problem is relevant, and its decisions - timely.

Purpose of scientific research. The scientific article attempts to consider issues of criminal legal protection of state secrets in Ukraine, as well as to determine ways to improve the relevant conceptual apparatus.

Statement of the main material. The State Secrets Act is a basic law, regulates public relations related to the classification of information as State secrets, and defines the time limits related to the classification, declassification of its material carriers and the protection of State secrets in order to protect Ukraine's national security. According to article 1 of the above-mentioned Law, State secrecy is a type of secret information that covers information in the field of defense, economy, science and technology, foreign relations, State security and law enforcement, the disclosure of which may be detrimental to the national security of the country and which is recognized in accordance with the procedure established by the Law, State secrecy and subject to State protection [1]. Article 1 of the Act uses the terms “State secret” and “secret information” in parallel. However, such an application is not appropriate because the term “classified information” is more general and can be used to define any public information to which access is restricted. So, in Article 329 of UK of Ukraine to which it is established responsibility for loss of documents, Containing state secrets, provides for the loss of documents or other material media of secret information, Containing State secrets, as well as objects about which information constitutes State secrets, The person to whom they were entrusted if the loss was the result of a violation of the procedure established by law for the treatment of these documents and other material carriers of classified information or objects [2].

This example proves that the concept of “classified information” has a broader meaning and covers the concept of «state secret». In addition, the term “classified information” is related primarily to the definition of the level of secrecy of information, a category describing the importance of classified information, the degree of restriction of access to it and the level of its protection by the State. That is, the use of the terms “secret information” and “secret information” in legislation may lead to ambiguity in the interpretation of a concept, the qualification of the act, although they reflect the same object of protection - state secrets.

This observation is important not only in view of the fact that the basic law for the legal institution is being considered, as well as the sphere of protection of state secrets, but also in view of the fact that until now domestic reform of the law is accompanied by the solution of problematic issues of the functioning of legal terminology in the legal sphere, which is due to the need to provide all legal branches with a standard language on modern methodological principles of codification of terms in legislative acts. This is noted by scientists, noting that the problem of normative definition and implementation of the principle of the national language in the funds process is updated by the need to improve the current legislation, harmonize Ukrainian law with the law of the European community, change the priorities, goals and tasks of the law-making process in Ukraine [4, 610-616]. Another aspect of terminological disagreement relates to the relationship between the legal concepts of “protection of State secrets” and “protection of State secrets”. At first glance, it seems that these concepts are identical, but this is not quite the case. The problem of the relationship between “protection” and “protection” (primarily subjective rights) in the legal literature is relevant. Detailed analysis of views on this problem is carried out repeatedly. For example, P. Shumov gathered the most famous of them, noting that the term «protection» is used much more frequently in the legislation, as the issue of protection is most acute at the time of violation or infringement of rights [5, 12].

It is the term “protection” that is used to define an active response to a violation of rights and to reduce the negative effects of certain violations. V.A. Tarhov notes that the protection of every right exists constantly and is aimed at ensuring its implementation and preventing its violation [6]. Consequently, it can be concluded that the existence of the legislation on State secrets itself is already evidence of the protection of the institution in question. This scientist notes that the need to resort to the protection of a violated right arises only if it is violated, denied or threatened. According to A.S. Ioffe, the protection and protection of rights are synonymous and provide for the imposition of sanctions on the offender. Differences between categories are interpreted as purely terminological [5, 13].

We believe that there is a dialectic of two categories: the process and its result. In this case, the process is the functioning of the system of state secrets, and protection is an indicator of its efficiency and effectiveness. The Criminal Code uses the term «protection» and the State Secrets Act uses both the term «protection» (in most cases) and the term «protection» (Section 4). At the same time, it is impossible to trace the clear position of the legislator. According to article 1 of the State Secrets Act, the protection of State secrets is defined as a set of organizational, legal, engineering, cryptographic and investigative measures aimed at preventing the disclosure of secret information and the loss of its material media. Since the State secret is the most important information for Ukraine in various spheres of its life activity and the leakage of such information threatens both certain spheres of State interests and the national security of Ukraine as a whole, the protection and protection of it has been and remains an integral part of the overall system of ensuring the national security of Ukraine. The inconsistency is also demonstrated by the fact that one of the most important tasks of the State today is to ensure the protection of State secrets from disclosure by various means and methods, including by bringing the perpetrators to criminal responsibility. The Criminal Code provides for criminal liability for the disclosure of State secrets (art. 328 of the Criminal Code), loss of documents and other material carriers of secret information (art. 329 of the Criminal Code).

At the same time, liability is provided for other socially dangerous acts, in particular article 330 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - for the transfer or collection of information constituting official information collected during the process of operational and search, counter-intelligence activities, in the field of defence of the country. By 2011, this article defined liability for disclosure of «confidential information» owned by the state and are not information constituting a state, commercial or other secret protected by this Code (the secret of adoption, voting, etc.). Article 28 of the State Secrets Act provides for the obligation of a citizen to preserve State secrets. Accordingly, restrictions on the transfer of State secrets to a foreign State or international organization (art. 32 of the Act) should first of all take into account the need to ensure the national security of Ukraine. Officials and citizens guilty of willful non-disclosure to State secrecy of information, the disclosure of which may be detrimental to the interests of national security of Ukraine, as well as unjustified underestimation of the degree of secrecy or unjustified declassification of classified information, bear legal responsibility. Special attention should be paid to the fact that it is common practice for economic entities of all forms of ownership, and not only the State, to comply with certain orders of the State or the State as the customer, to carry out purchases. Earlier rules of law provided priority needs of Ukraine - the need for goods, works and the services necessary for the solution of the major social and economic problems, maintenance of defense capability of the country and its safety, creation and maintenance up to standard of the state material reserves, implementation of the state and interstate target programs, providing functioning of the public authorities which are contained at the expense of the state budget.

Today at the state level the issues of public procurement, that is, the purchase of goods, works and services by the customer are regulated (General) - a body of state power, local self-government, state, communal institution or organization, which are determined responsible for organizing and carrying out procurement procedures for the benefit of customers - bodies of state power, local self-government and social insurance bodies established in accordance with the law, as well as legal entities (Enterprises, institutions, organizations) and their associations, provide for the needs of the State or territorial community. At the same time, it is stipulated that these activities are not carried out on an industrial or commercial basis under framework agreements [7]. In meeting the needs of the State (for example, in the field of defence), economic actors may be involved in ensuring the security of classified information in any of its manifestations, and therefore there must be a clear position on their legal responsibility. And here it is necessary to consider that subjects disclosure of the state secret or loss of the documents containing such a secret according to Criminal Code of Ukraine faces to which data of confidential character became known in connection with performance of official duties. Such is recognized as persons who have access to State secrets granted in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine. For the definition of the crime it is not important whether such information was trusted to the specified person or became known under other circumstances (by the specifics of the service certain information constituting the state secret may become known and accidentally). Others are not responsible for disclosing state secrets. However, such active involvement of specialists of the non-state sector in meeting the needs of the State and territorial communities makes it necessary to separate not only service secrets from State secrets, but also State secrets from commercial secrets (tradesecrets). It was the growth of its time of autonomy of state-owned enterprises and the private sector that made it appropriate and necessary to divide secrets into state-owned and enterprise secrets. The latter are protected because they are not publicly available, and such information needs to be protected because it is not a state secret. In this regard, it is important to talk about the problem of the relationship of public authorities to access commercial secrets and their duty to protect them, as the legislation does not regulate this issue.

It is impossible to build relations between state bodies and business structures if the first one at the legislative level is not provided with access to information that constitutes the official and commercial secrets of organizations and institutions [8, 52-54]. State authorities must fulfill their obligations to ensure the security of such information: the regime of State secrets cannot be provided to such information, as this is contrary to the very foundations of the construction of the said legal institution; Information security mode «for official use» does not correspond to the level of protection of commercial secrets. In order to avoid confusion (both terminological and practical), scientists, in particular A.A. Fatyanov, have long noted the need to prohibit the use of mushrooms established for state secrets and the introduction of uniform mushrooms for official and commercial secrets to denote official and commercial secrets [8, 54-56]. There is an urgent need to establish a basic set of legal and organizational measures, the implementation of which will ensure the protection of confidential information, which, for example, does not constitute State secrets but is subject to protection, and State secrets, which should be made known to the private sector if necessary.

In addition, an analysis of the provisions of the State Secrets Act, the National Security Strategy and the Criminal Code shows that another problem exists: In this Code, criminal law provisions providing for liability for violation of the regime of protection of State secrets, placed not in section I “crimes against the foundations of national security” of the Special Part, but in section XIV crimes in the field of protection of State secrets, inviolability of State borders, ensuring conscription and mobilization» of the Special Part. Thus, the legislator has reduced the importance for national security of preserving state secrets. At the same time, paragraph 3.7 of the National Security Strategy of Ukraine defines that among the current threats there are threats to the security of information resources, which are expressed, inter alia, in the physical and moral antiquity of the system of protection of state secrets and other types of information with limited access [9].

Conclusions. The problems mentioned in the article need to be solved in order to improve the legislation on state secrets. The analysis of the legislation of many foreign countries also shows that the violation of the regime of State secrets is recognized as an illegal act aimed at undermining the foundations of national security. A number of conclusions have been reached during the disclosure of the topic. Thus, it has been determined that, in order to improve criminal law, the terminology used requires clarification. In particular, the use in legislation of the terms “classified information” and “classified information” in some cases as identical and in others as unequal in content may lead to ambiguity in the interpretation and characterization of the act. In our view, the term “classified information” is not the same as “State secret”.

It is also worth noting that the terms “protection” and “protection” of state secrets are not interchangeable, as may seem at first glance. On the contrary, protection measures are evidence of the effectiveness of security activities. Therefore, it is worth talking first of all about «protection of state secrets» as an indicator of the efficiency and efficiency of the functioning of the system of state secrets. This should be reflected in the legislation, since the functioning of a unified legal terminology in the field of protection of State secrets in particular and in the legal sphere in general is an important factor in the reform and harmonization of legislation. The analysis of legal norms also shows the need to regulate at the legislative level the involvement of specialists of the non-State sector in meeting the needs of the State or territorial communities, first of all requiring the separation not only of official secrets from State, but also State secrets from commercial ones.

In addition, studies of the norms of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and its relationship with the norms of other institutional legal acts, As well as studies of foreign legislation suggest that criminal law, Providing for liability for violation of the regime of protection of State secrets, shall be transferred from section XIV “Crimes in the field of protection of State secrets, Inviolability of State Borders, Recruitment and Mobilization” in Section I “Crimes against the Foundations of National Security” of the Special Part of this Code as such, Which are directly relevant to national security. Thus, solutions to the identified problems are important from the point of view of protecting the national security of Ukraine, with which this sphere is related [10].

References

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