OBJECT OF LEGALIZATION (LAUNDERING) OF PROPERTY OBTAINED BY CRIMINAL MEANS (ART. 209 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF UKRAINE)

Introduction. The article is devoted to the problem of the object of legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means (Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), regarding which there is no unity of opinion in science. The object, which is an element of the composition of a criminal offense, is important both for the science of criminal law and for law-making and law-enforcement practice. In the article, the author proceeds from theoretical provisions according to which the object of a criminal offense is a social relationship protected by the criminal law. Purpose. The purpose of the study is to find out the object of the criminal offense provided for in Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, — legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means. Materials and methods. The research materials are: 1) legal acts regulating social relations, which are the object of legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means, and the law on criminal liability; 2) works of researchers dedicated to the object of criminal offenses in the sphere of economic activity, in particular, the object of legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means. In the process of carrying out the research, a system of methods of knowledge at the philosophical, general scientific and special levels was used. The dialectical method was used in learning about the object of a criminal offense as social relations that are in development, establishing the relationship between the concepts of the generic and the direct object, and identifying the relationship between them. The hermeneutic method made it possible to determine the content of legal norms by interpreting their textual fixation in a normative legal act. Among general scientific methods, such logical methods as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction and concretization were used. These methods were used in the study of legal acts and literary sources. The use of a special-scientific formal-legal method made it possible to carry out a study based on the definitions and features of criminal law concepts and categories, such as “composition of a criminal offense”, “element of a composition”, “object of a criminal offence”, when interpreting normative legal acts to take into account the peculiarities of legal technique, etc. Results. As a result of the conducted research, it was established that the main direct object of legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means goes beyond the concept of “economic activity”, which necessitates the need to expand the content of the generic object of criminal offenses, which are fixed in Chapter VII of the Special parts of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The article proposes to supplement the name of the specified section by changing it to “Criminal offenses against financial security and economic activity”. At the same time, financial security is defined as a set of homogeneous social relations that ensure the state of protection of the financial system against internal and external threats and are protected by criminal law. The main direct object of the criminal offense provided for in Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, social relations are recognized that ensure the state of protection of the financial system against the involvement of property obtained by criminal means and giving it the appearance of allegedly legally obtained financial resources. Discussion. The result of further research may be the development of scientific concepts of objects of specific criminal offenses, which are based on an understanding of financial security, its various elements and levels.