Issue: № 9, 2025
Doi: https://doi.org/10.37634/efp.2025.9.5
The paper examines the problems of applying the sanction under Article 325 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in contemporary judicial practice. Particular attention is paid to the legislative changes introduced during the COVID-19 quarantine, which significantly altered the sanction three times and created temporal problems regarding its validity. The analysis shows that courts predominantly applied minimum fines, with imprisonment or arrest rarely imposed. After the adoption of the Law of 23.08.2023, probation supervision was introduced as a new type of punishment, but its use in judicial practice remains absent. It is emphasized that the specificity of negligent offenses under Article 325, usually committed by individuals due to improper performance of professional or official duties, does not fully correspond to the content of probation programs aimed at socially maladapted offenders. The absence of additional punishment, such as disqualification from certain positions or activities, is identified as a gap in the sanction, since violations of sanitary rules are often linked to the offender’s professional duties. The study concludes that the current version of Article 325 creates inconsistencies in criminal liability, undermines legal certainty, and does not ensure proportionality of sanctions to the public danger of the offense. Therefore, it is proposed to urgently adopt a new version of Article 325 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine that would take into account the nature of the offense, international standards of public health protection, and the necessity of adequate criminal law measures for the prevention of particularly dangerous infectious diseases spread.
Keywords : criminal liability, Article 325 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, sanction, judicial practice, probation supervision, particularly dangerous infectious diseases, COVID-19
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