Social and Legal Studios

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that the institution of money went through the long development process, during which money acquired different forms. Non-cash money is a relatively recent form that made the same breakthrough, as the introduction of paper money, which drove the coins out quickly in the past centuries. Due to the rapid development of computer technology non-cash money may replace the cash very soon. The purpose of the proposed article is to analyze and generalize doctrinal approaches to understanding the legal nature of non-cash money and to clarify the peculiarities of this money as a subject of property crimes. There is no uniform understanding of the concept of “non-cash money”, and the criminal legal assessment of misappropriation of non-cash money, in particular, belongs to the issues that have no clear solution in criminal law and have contradictory solution in practice. The object of the article is a critical analysis of achievements of previous research workers and, therefore, continuation of development and generalization of doctrinal approaches to the understanding of the legal nature of non-cash money, clarification of special aspects of non-cash money as the subject of offenses against property. Both financial experts and lawyers are trying to determine the nature of non-cash money. The undertaken analysis of scientific papers allows clarifying that the ambiguity of the legal nature of non-cash money can not but complicating the resolution of issues regarding the nature of misappropriation of such money. Different points of view regarding this issue are expressed in the criminal justice literature. Some experts believe that in case of illegal transfer of non-cash resources the damage is done to binding relations, and therefore application of provisions of criminal law regarding responsibility for offenses against property seems to be unreasonable. Not acquiring the outlined position substantially, it is noted at the same time that there is the problem of determination of the generic object of offenses, responsibility for which is provided in Section VI “Offenses against property” of the Special part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The point is that the range of relations which are actually protected by provisions of the criminal law, combined in this section, is not limited to property relations and therefore its name, in my opinion, should be specified. Scientific literature refers to the factors that point at the nature of the real right of non-cash money: if we consider certain liabilities associated with the movement of funds, it is clear that the law considers non-cash money as the object of property rights. The undertaken study allows to draw conclusion that the nature of offenses against money resources does not depend on their form (cash or non-cash); subject of the offense in case of the illegal writing sums of non-cash resources off the bank accounts is the property which belongs to holders of accounts; offense against non-cash money should be regarded as taking possession of property of others in a particular way, defined in the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The range of problems of the subject of offenses against property remains relevant especially in terms of defining the prospects of replacement of the concept of offenses against property developed in the Soviet period by the concept of property offenses

Keywords: offenses against property, the subject of offense, non-cash money

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