Baltic Journal of Economic Studies (Dec 2018)
REALIZATION OF THE RIGHT OF REBELLION: FROM THE MANIFESTATION OF DEMOCRACY TO A CRIME AGAINST THE STATE
Abstract
The objective of the article is to identify, describe, and explain the grounds and conditions for realizing the right of rebellion, delimitation of the relevant democratic procedures from anti-state crimes. The main results of the research are that we have established the liberal and democratic principles for the realization of the right of rebellion. It has been established that it can be realized only on the grounds of the extreme necessity in restoring the rule of law, that is, while having an exclusively criminal and preventive purpose. We have also discovered that both a democratic procedure of realizing the right of rebellion can be solely considered on condition of sufficient justification, proof of the long ineffectiveness of other means of influencing the criminalized apparatus of the state, in particular judicial ones. It has been substantiated that the essential condition for the realization of such a right is the critical level of nonconfidence to the personnel of the highest agencies of state power in the overwhelming majority of the population, as well as the actual impossibility to apply (implement) the statutory forms of influence on their personnel. It is mandatory to consider the requirement of ensuring national security on the basis of a scientifically grounded criminological forecast of the deployment of mass resistance, taking into account the probable reaction to it by the subjects of international law. Thus, the realization of the right of rebellion should be non-violent. In all other cases, there is a criminal seizure of state power. The applied value of the research is the fact that due to the developed system of grounds and conditions for realizing the right of rebellion, the latter, as it is, may be delimitated from political criminal practices aimed at dismantlement of the Constitutional statehood, the seizure of state power. The results of the research may also be taken into account by political actors, as well as law enforcement agencies, courts while criminological substantiation, prediction of mass resistance measures, and legal assessment of such actions. Value/originality. The authors of the work have improved the criminological vision of the movement of mass resistance, which can take place both in the form of the realization of the natural right of rebellion and in the form of anti-state crimes. The use of these developments can be useful in the retrospective legal assessment of the situation of mass protests, forms, means, and consequences of responding to them by the authorities, preventing abuse of the right of rebellion and related crimes.
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