Review

The questions about differences between various types of public-law delicts are discussed. These issues are important in the context of the reform of material and procedural criminal law, launched in 2012, the adoption of the new Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine, in which the concepts of «criminal offense» and «criminal misdemeanor» first appeared in the Ukrainian legislation. Criminal offenses differ from misdemeanors by different objects and different degrees of encroachment. But that is not the only difference. Recently, the difference between them was caused by drifting of the criminal offenses towards the private law. The difference between the criminal offense and criminal misdemeanor lies in their different severity, which is determined mainly by the degree (hooliganism – minor hooliganism), and sometimes by nature (disclosure of a state secret – the disclosure of a professional secret). The difference between the criminal misdemeanor and administrative offence is that the core (i. e. the character) of administrative offence is encroachment upon only one possible object – a system of government (administration) in various spheres of life (education, healthcare, manufacturing, trade, environment etc.). Administrative offence as a kind of behavior, is different from an administrative infraction by its typicality and the fact that the legislator has provided direct sanctions for such behavior, which are used by administrative body with the purpose of prevention; in all other cases, the fact of an administrative infraction is established by the court, whose role primarily lies in resolving of administrative and legal conflict by forcing the offender to change his/her behavior and eliminate its negative effects.

Keywords: «Criminal offense», «crime», «criminal misdemeanor», «administrative infraction», «administrative offence».