Gaps in Administrative and Legal Regulation of the Liability Institution for Direct Contempt

Abstract

The publication is focused on studying the state of legal regulation of the liability institution for direct contempt. Cases of direct contempt’s manifestation are negative phenomenon, since they negatively affect the activities and image of the judicial system; they are demonstration of the level of trust to the judicial power; they create obstacles in the formation of confident relationship between citizens and the court; they prevent the state from fulfilling its obligations to ensure everyone’s right to a fair trial. The current legislation of Ukraine has been analyzed. It has been established that the legislation has many gaps that need to be addressed immediately. Shortcomings in legal regulation hinder the full functioning of the liability institution for direct contempt on equal and fair terms, since they allow for ambiguous interpretation of the law norms and evaluation of a person’s actions. The authors have studied some gaps in legal regulation of the liability institution for direct contempt. It has been offered to combine all the shortcomings of the legislation into two groups: of qualifying and procedural nature. Qualifying shortcomings include problematic issues related to the qualification of a person’s actions (regarding the forms of direct contempt, the place and time of the action, the subjects of the offense). Procedural shortcomings include problematic issues related to the procedure for prosecuting direct contempt, in particular determining the range of courts that may hear such cases and the consistency of their powers; the procedure for appointing a judge to hear such cases; the need to draw up the minutes on administrative offenses and to record the procedure of hearing the case; features of notifying a person about the time and place of hearing the case on administrative offenses, etc. The opinions of scholars and practitioners on the functioning of the liability institution for direct contempt in Ukraine have been analyzed. The authors have formulated propositions on improving the legal regulation of the liability institution for direct contempt.

Keywords

• direct contempt
• forms of direct contempt’s manifestation
• malicious evasion
• fair trial.