The problems of distinguishing administrative offenses and crimes relevant to the high-alert regime

Abstract

The article is devoted to the current issues of regulating administrative responsibility for offenses related to the global challenge of our time: the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors investigate the problems of administrative offenses qualification. In particular, the article describes the problem of distinguishing between offenses and crimes that are similar in their objective aspect, based on possible errors of legislative regulation. The existing practice of applying the analyzed articles of legislation has been studied. Difficulties and ambiguities in the qualification of offenses have been noted. In practice, solutions to the problems of qualification are noted in distinguishing between administrative offenses as well as delimiting offenses from crimes. Distinguishing of that kind is important due to blurred borders in concepts of socially dangerous acts and offenses, based not on the interpretation of the dispositions of norms content, but on the amount of sanctions or signs of the subject. It is concluded that it is necessary to apply a systemic approach in law when securing norms that are similar in their objective aspect in related branches of law. In this regard, recommendations are given for optimizing legal regulation in this area.