Criminal Law Transformation in the Context of COVID-19: The Experience of the European Union and Ukraine

Abstract

The aim of the study was to identify and analysed the novelties of the criminal law of Ukraine and the EU Member States caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as regulations and social impact tools. The content analysis, doctrinal approach, comparative method, as well as general methods were applied to analysed research papers, regulations, case law and statistics on COVID-19-related crimes. Criminal law is considered as part of anti-pandemic policy. National governments focus on responding to individual COVID-19-related crimes rather than on crime trends in general. Due to the transient situation, European and Ukrainian practice has shown the priority of adapting existing criminal law to prevent COVID-19. In general, the transformation of criminal law involves establishing rules that can be applied in any pandemic. An important area is the response to long-term criminal challenges (domestic violence, organized crime) through criminal law. The experience of European countries and Ukraine in responding to global threats reveals uncertainty in the criminal law transformation approaches. This determines the reasonability of working out a common European framework of criminal law policy and prospects for the development of criminal law, which can be defined in international recommendatory instruments.