Formation of the Principle of Personal Criminal Responsibility in Ukraine during the Middle Ages

Abstract

The article studies the process of formation and development of the principle of personal (personal) criminal responsibility in medieval Ukraine during the IX – the first half of the XVII centuries.
The author determined that the constituent elements that reflected the content of the genesis of the principle of personal responsibility for the studied era were the categories «subject of a criminal offense», «individual criminal responsibility» and «age of a natural person from which criminal responsibility began».
It was established that during the period of Kyivan Rus, only personally free people (individuals) could be the subjects of a criminal offense (crime). This perception of the subject of the crime persisted for quite a long time and generally corresponded to the historical realities and requirements of the early Middle Ages. By the end of the 16th century with the adoption of three editions of the Lithuanian Statute, the concept of «subject of a criminal offense (crime)» already understood a natural person, regardless of social status (citizens, foreigners, stateless persons), who committed a criminal offense (crime) and reached the age from which criminal responsibility arose. In the 16th century personally dependent persons who committed criminal offenses were not exempted from punishment. For the first time in the history of domestic criminal law, the concept of lack of judgment due to the state of health appears at the legislative level.
The author comes to the conclusion that from the XI century the concept of individual criminal responsibility begins to improve and slowly take hold. The novels of Ruska Pravda still contain information about the remnants of the institution of collective responsibility, but in the following centuries this dominant was not only proclaimed, but also legislated. Finally, the concept of individual criminal responsibility was approved by the norms of the Lithuanian Statute.
It was determined that for the first time a formal mention of the age of a person who could bear criminal responsibility appears in the provisions of the Sudebnyk Casimir IV of 1468: children who were younger than seven years old were exempted from criminal punishment. The norms of the third edition of the Lithuanian Statute (1588) fully established the rule: persons who have reached the age of sixteen before committing a criminal offense (crime) are subject to criminal liability. This norm fully corresponds to the current provisions of Part 1 of Article 22 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.