LEGAL SOURCES OF UKRAINIAN CRIMINAL LAW IN THE ХVI–ХVIIth CENTURIES

Abstract

The problem of the article is the diversity of the source base of Ukrainian criminal law in the sixteenth - seventeenth centuries, and the impact on it of the rules of Ukrainian law of the previous period, the rules of foreign origin, and other factors of political, socio-economic, religious and cultural nature. The purpose of the article is to clarify the legal sources of Ukrainian criminal law in the sixteenth – seventeenth centuries, and to identify their characteristic features and peculiarities. The research methods used are the methods of philosophical dialectic, analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, systemic and structural, comparative legal, and special legal methods. It is proved that the adoption of the First Edition of the Lithuanian Statute was due to the legislator's attempt to introduce a common law for the entire State, the reasons for the publication of the Second Edition were constant changes in various spheres of society, and the Third Edition was due to the emergence of the new State of the Commonwealth and the strengthening of the gentry in political and economic terms. It is found that the sources of the Lithuanian Statute were the Rus' Pravda, Ukrainian customary law, Casimir's Judicial Code of 1468, statutory zemstvo charters, princely confirmation charters, Sejm resolutions and rulings, case law, and foreign law. Most of the criminal law provisions of the Lithuanian Statute were based on the legal customs of the Ukrainian people. After the national liberation war of the mid-seventeenth century, the sources of law were the regulations issued by the Hetman, the General Military Chancellery, colonels and centurions, legal customs, and the Lithuanian Statute of 1588. The author establishes that the latter was used by judges in both Polish and Ruthenian versions, but those norms that did not correspond to the new socio-political and economic realities were not valid, while the Ruthenian version was amended due to the democratization of society. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the use of legal customs intensified. It is proved that legal customs should not have contradicted the current legislation, morality, ethics, and the socio-political system of the state. The customary law of the Cossacks had a certain peculiarity. Its norms were used by all Cossacks, were constantly updated due to the legal consciousness of newcomers and influenced the legal system of both the Left Bank and the Right Bank of Ukraine.