Review

The article reflects the results of two stages of scientific research: the most common (generic) attributes of falsification as a social phenomenon are identified; specific attributes of criminally punishable falsification are established.

The normative content of the concept of "falsification" is investigated in various articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code; it establishes its relationship with the content of other concepts that define identical or related phenomena - "falsification", "fake", "creation", "manufacturing (illegal manufacturing)", "deception" and others. The absence of systematic and unambiguous in the normative use of these terms is stated. The author's vision of the correlation between the concepts of "falsification" - "forging" ("fake") is suggested.

The attributes and content of criminal-punishable falsification have been established, and its definition has been proposed. A criminal-punishable falsification is a socially dangerous unlawful manufacture (creation) of an object that, by form and/or content, differs from the genuine one, or changes (distortion) of this subject to provide him with new qualities committed for the purpose of issuing a falsified subject instead of the genuine, as well as the sale or use of such an item.

Attributes of criminal-punishable falsification are the social danger and illegal behavior of a person. On the basis of the analysis of the norms in which criminal responsibility for falsification is established, it is asserted that the public danger of corresponding actions may be related to: a) the properties of the subject of falsification (for example, a counterfeit medicinal product - Article 321 (1) of the Criminal Code, falsified electoral document - Article 158 of the Criminal Code, or falsified evidence of the charge in the criminal proceedings - Article 372 of the Criminal Code); b) with socially dangerous consequences (for example, an obligatory condition for liability under Article 223 (1) of the Criminal Code is not simply the forgery of documents submitted for registration of the securities issue, but the resulting material damage to the investor as a result of such actions; c) falsification supplements another action within the same legal structure - when falsification (forgery) is a way of committing a certain type of prohibited behavior (for example, in Article 409 of the Criminal Code, forgery of documents is a method to evade the fulfilling of military service duties by serviceman).

Illegality in the implementation of criminal-punishable fraud means the following: a) the act committed by the subject is described in the Special Part of the Criminal Code as a crime of a certain type (in some cases, acts of falsification may correspond to the attributes of crimes of various types); b) the act committed by the subject is not insignificant in the sense of Part 2 of Art. 11 of the Criminal Code; c) there are no circumstances excluding the crime of the act.

Key words: falsification; criminally punishable falsification; forgery; deceit; way of committing a crime.