Criminal Law Judgment in Eastern European States
Relevance. In most states of the world, a criminal record is a person's criminal history, which is taken into account when sentencing a newly committed crime. In some countries, conviction information is limited to enforceable convictions, while in other countries, this information may include information on administrative offenses, charges dropped, prosecutions, cases in which the person has been acquitted. A criminal record can even include information about speeding and drunk driving. The greatest differences in the law of modern states can be traced in the legal, including criminal law, the meaning of a criminal record. The purpose of the study is to identify the criminal and general legal and social consequences of convictions in Eastern European states. Objectives: to determine the nature and concept of a criminal record; to reveal its general legal significance; to reveal the criminal law value of a criminal record; consider the system of legal restrictions, which involves a criminal record; give the conditions and grounds for the cancellation of a criminal record; correlate convictions with other national criminal law institutions in the legislation of Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Methodology. In the process of working on the study, both general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis) and methods of legal science were used, among which comparative legal was the main one. Results. As a result, a picture is presented that reflects the real state of the norms of criminal legislation governing the issues of criminal record, law enforcement practice, as well as criminal-legal scientific research of criminal record in individual Eastern European states. The significance of the results also lies in the fact that they will make it possible to approach the global level of research on the problems of criminal records, and the publication of the results will be able to enrich the criminal law science with data on the state and prospects of the institution of criminal records in Eastern European states. Conclusions. The institute for the removal of convictions in the criminal law of the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria is aimed at eliminating all the existing consequences of this condition, it is also aimed at resocializing persons, however, the removal of a criminal record today is not able to annul its general social consequences.