2026-03-30
Halyna Palamarchuk, Mariia Diakur, Olena Yushchyk, Valeriia Shulha, Oleksandr Savka
The proliferation of plea bargains across various legal systems has resulted in significant changes to the structure of criminal trial proceedings and has generated substantial debate regarding the interrelationship between efficiency and legality in the administration of criminal justice. Although prior research has examined the use of plea bargains from an analytical perspective by examining either the extent to which such arrangements conform to principles of procedural fairness or are subject to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, there have been few studies conducted in order to evaluate the structural relationships that exist between substantive criminal law and procedural regulation in this context. Through the development of a comparative, coherent analytical model to examine the degree to which plea bargains remain consistent with the hierarchical structures of criminal responsibility, the author conducts a comparative analysis of thirteen jurisdictions that represent three different types of legal traditions (i.e., adversarial, inquisitorial and hybrid) in order to identify patterns of substantive-procedural inconsistency. In addition to conducting a comparative analysis of legislative frameworks and judicial reasoning, the author also evaluates the potential for plea bargains to be compatible with legality and proportionality and demonstrates that their legitimacy will depend upon their explicit inclusion within the doctrines of criminal law as well as their inclusion within the doctrine of criminal law. The author finds that codification models tend to provide greater levels of normative stability than do decentralized or discretionary models. Finally, the author provides a typology of normative conflict and operational indicators that can be used in comparative criminal law scholarship and as a basis for evaluating the feasibility of implementing European criminal law harmonization.
2026-03-30
Thai Pham Hong, Ngoc Ta Quang, Van Vu Hong
Professionalism constitutes a core requirement for civil servants in the public service, particularly in the context of Vietnam’s deepening international integration. This study aims to clarify the essential qualities, capacities and professional reputation that Vietnamese civil servants must possess to meet contemporary governance demands. To accomplish this, the research examines current legal documents governing civil servant standards and surveys 175 respondents to assess the current status and solution requirements for enhancing professionalism. Findings indicate that reforms in public administration and the pressures of international integration have contributed to improving the qualities, capacities and professional standing of civil servants. Nevertheless, persistent limitations remain, especially regarding foreign language proficiency, technological competence and the uneven ability to adapt to global administrative practices. These shortcomings highlight the need for continued efforts to strengthen professional standards. Drawing on survey data, legal analysis and empirical assessment, the study proposes targeted solutions aimed at promoting a more capable, adaptive and internationally aligned civil service capable of meeting present and future challenges.
2026-03-30
Andrii Antoshchuk, Olha Dobrova, Olena Volobuieva, Vladas Tumalavičius, Oksana Bryskovska
The purpose of this research was to determine appropriate forensic methods for evaluating the reliability of evidence and to formulate a procedural algorithm for investigators and prosecutors that guarantees a systematic and consistent verification of the evidentiary framework. To this end, a doctrinal legal analysis of the provisions of national and international law (CPC of Ukraine, Budapest Convention, ISO/IEC 27001), a comparative examination of EU and US practices (EPPO Guidelines, Federal Rules of Evidence, Bundesgerichtshof, Sąd Najwyższy), and a content analysis of 20 Supreme Court decisions from Ukraine were conducted. The findings showed that the principal criteria for reliability were proportionality, transparency, and the efficacy of remedial measures. Methodologically, these criteria were operationalized through a rule-based coding scheme applied to the selected legal instruments and judicial decisions, with cross-jurisdictional triangulation of recurring procedural defects and verification steps. It was found that in Ukrainian jurisprudence, the predominant cause for deeming evidence inadmissible was the violation of the procedural protocol for its collection, whereas in Germany and Poland, deficiencies in the "chain of custody" were more prevalent. The comparison with international standards revealed a structural divergence between formal reliability requirements and their procedural operationalization within the national process. The scientific novelty lies in the establishment of a stepwise, auditable algorithm for validating evidence, which integrates doctrinal legal, comparative, and empirical approaches into a coherent framework of procedural evaluation. This study also emphasizes the need to strengthen procedural practices within Ukraine, aligning them with European standards and technical safeguards, thereby improving the consistency of evidence verification. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of applying its findings to develop guidelines and methodological recommendations, as well as to strengthen the professional competencies of investigators and prosecutors in the field of evidence verification within Ukraine.
2026-03-30
Anatolii Puhach, Oleksandr Shevchuk, Oleh Zrazhevskyy, Alexander Rusnak, Viktor Trepak
The growing practical use of OSINT in criminal proceedings, together with fragmented regulation and uneven evidentiary treatment in Ukraine and the EU, called for a clearer legal analysis. This study examined under which conditions OSINT-derived material may be used in criminal proceedings and which legal requirements govern its collection, authenticity, documentation, and judicial assessment. The method combined doctrinal analysis of legislation and case law from Ukraine and EU legal materials, with the United Kingdom and the United States used as comparative reference points because their courts and legal instruments more expressly addressed digital evidence and publicly available online material. The analysis showed that European approaches relied on clearer rules on legality, proportionality, authenticity, and documentation, whereas Ukrainian law treated OSINT mainly through general rules on electronic evidence. On that basis, the article formulated a legal test centered on lawful collection, source identification, preservation of integrity, procedural recording, and judicial review. The novelty of the study lies in restating OSINT issues in conventional evidentiary terms and clarifying where Ukrainian law converges with, and differs from, European approaches. Further research should test these criteria in actual criminal cases.
2026-03-30
Svitlana Kasapohlu, Serhii Vasylyna, Artur Voloboiev, Serhii Zelenskyi, Roman Yemelianov
The increase in economic crime under martial law, together with accelerated digitalization of financial services, underscores the need to reassess the role of criminal proceedings in countering financial crime, with an empirical focus on insurance fraud as a procedurally vulnerable segment. Despite amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine (CCU) and the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine (CPCU), investigative practice remains limited by deficiencies in the evidentiary base, procedural fragmentation, and weak interdepartmental coordination. The study aims to identify systemic shortcomings in financial-crime investigations and to substantiate procedural improvements. The research is based on content analysis of eight publicly available judicial decisions (six Supreme Court and two appellate decisions, 2023–2024), compliance-oriented assessment against FATF, GRECO, and ECtHR standards, and a functional comparative review of institutional models in France, Germany, and Poland. The findings indicate that stable outcomes are associated with a coherent evidentiary chain (timely expert examinations, interrogation of key witnesses, and preservation of digital traces), whereas terminated proceedings reflect procedural omissions and weak substantiation of intent as recorded in judicial reasoning. The analysis also highlights inconsistencies in asset-seizure initiation, the timing and use of expert evidence, and the procedural handling of digital traces. Comparative assessment suggests that specialized prosecution capacity and register-based data infrastructures support earlier evidence consolidation and more robust procedural outcomes. The study supports the hypothesis that a unified national insurance-fraud register and еarly prosecutorial oversight, aligned with European procedural safeguards, could strengthen evidentiary continuity and improve the effectiveness of financial-crime investigations in Ukraine.
2026-03-30
Anqian Wang
To address the disconnect between ecological civilization discourse and environmental judicial practice, and the difficulty of traditional thematic models in capturing the deep semantic evolution of judgment texts, this paper systematically examines the presentation and evolutionary characteristics of ecological civilization discourse in judicial decisions, using 450 publicly available environmental-related judgments from the Supreme People's Court as its research object. This study provides an empirical path for understanding ecological civilization discourse through judicial interpretation and case institutionalization, and offers practical suggestions for judicial standardization and evidence chain construction. Methodologically, at the level of the judgment reasoning paragraphs, this paper employs the BERTopic thematic model framework—based on Chinese SBERT semantic embedding combined with UMAP dimensionality reduction, HDBSCAN clustering, and c-TF-IDF keyword extraction—to conduct time-slice analysis of judicial discourse, revealing the institutionalization path of ecological civilization discourse. The results show that the thematic weights of ecological restoration and restoration to the original state have been continuously increasing (0.193 in 2012, 0.228 in 2024); the themes of ecological civilization value and legal application appear explicitly in 63.6% of the cases, and are significantly correlated with the citation of guiding cases (OR=2.62, p=0.001). The BERTopic model performs well in terms of topic consistency (c_v=0.62), cluster consistency (NMI=0.74), and interpretability (0.84), improving the accuracy and interpretability of identifying the evolution path of ecological civilization discourse in the judicial system.
2025-12-31
Chaoying Yu, Norazlina Abdul Aziz
The administrative penalty power of Chinese townships is undergoing a dynamic reform process from legal empowerment to practical adjustment. Article 24 of the Administrative Penalty Law revised in 2021 establishes the legal framework for provincial governments to delegate administrative penalty authority, providing a system foundation for the downward shift of the law enforcement focus. However, the legislative provisions are rather vague, and multiple obstacles have been encountered in specific practical implementation, such as insufficient empowerment effectiveness, shortage of law enforcement resources, poor coordination in law enforcement, lack of professional law enforcement personnel, and imperfect supervision mechanisms, which have seriously affected the law enforcement efficiency and weakened the credibility of township law enforcement. To thoroughly analyze the causes of the aforementioned problems and explore paths to resolve these dilemmas, this study comprehensively adopts methods such as data statistics, textual analysis, and field research to measure the relevant indicators of the administrative law enforcement powers of township people's governments. Meanwhile, it conducts differentiated analyses from multiple dimensions including law enforcement support, case-handling quality, and law enforcement effectiveness, so as to ensure the objectivity and validity of the research findings. Finally, the researcher intends to propose relevant countermeasures from aspects such as improving the legal system, constructing a refined administrative penalty power operation mechanism, enhancing the law enforcement capacity and level of townships, and reshaping the law enforcement supervision system, providing theoretical support and practical suggestions for improving the administrative law enforcement system at the grassroots level in China.
2025-12-31
Mykola Knapets, Dmytro Sviatetskyi, Olena Konstantinova, Oleksandr Kostiukevych, Taras Kit
The growing role of legal mechanisms in ensuring the transparency of procedures, the stability of contractual relations, and the legal protection of tenants makes a comprehensive analysis of the current regulatory framework relevant. The aim of the study was to identify the main legal and administrative factors that influence the institutional interaction between government bodies and users of agricultural land in the context of legal transformations. The research methodology included an analysis of legislation, content analysis of 127 lease agreements, a study of case law, a survey of 42 land law specialists, and legal modelling of the consequences of regulatory changes. The qualitative component of the interviews was examined through a thematic legal assessment, which allowed the identification of typical administrative barriers. The ongoing wartime conditions in Ukraine additionally affect access to cadastral information and the stability of registration procedures, which should be considered when interpreting the results. The main results revealed a number of barriers, including the complexity of coordination procedures, contradictions between cadastral and registration data, as well as insufficient coordination of the functions of public administration bodies. The highest level of efficiency was recorded in notarial agencies, while local governments demonstrated the lowest indicators because of unclear legal status. The forecast predicts increased competition for land resources, the expansion of electronic circulation of lease rights, and increased vulnerability of small tenants. The academic novelty is the integration of legal, empirical, and analytical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of law enforcement in the field of land lease. The practical significance of the results is the developed proposals for improving legislative procedures, unifying contractual practice, and increasing legal predictability in land legal relations.
2025-12-31
Ihor Zhukevych, Igors Trofimovs, Taras Kulchytskyi, Volodymyr Kroitor, Oleksandr Klymenko
The purpose of this study was to describe the effectiveness of the existing mechanisms for the execution of court decisions in civil cases in Ukraine. The research methodology was formed based on the indices of the development of the judicial system: the index of measuring the effectiveness of justice, formed by the World Bank, and the quality of regulation and the rule of law were used. The quality of regulation is assessed using a widely used international indicator, where higher scores correspond to higher regulatory effectiveness. Using World Bank datasets together with administrative statistics from the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, a correlation-regression analysis was conducted. The results of the study indicated that improving the rule of law and quality of regulation indicators had a statistically significant positive impact on the enforcement of court decisions. This explained about 79% of the explained variation. It was found that there are difficulties with the functioning mechanism in the civil justice system of Ukraine, due to the low percentage of their actual execution. The conclusions indicate that to solve the proposed problems, it is proposed to optimize legislative regulation, establish budgetary discipline, introduce an automated database for the execution.