MYKHAILO HOLOVKO – YULIIA SHEVCHENKO | TO THE ISSUE OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR VIOLATIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS DECISIONS IN UKRAINE | Available on-line on https://www.slsjournal.com SOCIAL AND LEGAL SCIENCES 2/2018 VOL 1 | ISSN 2544-6770 | 70 TO THE ISSUE OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR VIOLA- TIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS DECISIONS IN UKRAINE Mykhailo Holovko Yuliia Shevchenko Abstract The article is devoted to the criminal law aspect of using the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Ukrainian legislation and law enforcement practice. The problem of criminal liability for non-enforcement of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights has been investigated and as the result the conclusion has been made about the necessity to amend the legislative norm of the Criminal Code of Ukraine establishing criminal liability for the indicated act. Key words: criminal law, decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, non-enforcement of a court decision, criminal liability. Introduction The statutory provision of Article 55 of the Constitution of Ukraine on the right of everyone "to apply for the protection of their rights and freedoms to the relevant international judicial institutions or to the relevant bodies of international organizations where Ukraine is a party" [9] is of urgent issue nowadays as Ukraine wants to meet the international and European standards in the field of human rights and freedoms. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) [2], ratified by Ukraine July, 17 in 1997, not only proclaimed fundamental rights and freedoms, but also developed a special legal mechanism for their protection: the European Court of Human Rights. In December 2015, the Council of Europe‟s Steering Committee on Human Rights published a report on the longer-term future of the system of the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”). There were two challenges which particularly struck lawyers: firstly, prolonged non-implementation of a number of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and secondly, direct attacks on the Court‟s authority. It is difficult to overestimate the outstanding contribution of the Strasbourg Court to the protection of of human rights in Europe. This has been acknowledged during the reform process (High Level Izmir-Brighton-Brussels conference declaration). The fact that so many Europeans (among them - Ukrainians) turn to the Strasbourg Court for redress reflects the high level of trust that they place in the Convention system. Nevertheless, the participating States must ensure the effectiveness of the enforcement of Court decisions. Prolonged non-implementation of the judgments of the Court is a challenge to the Court‟s authority and thus to the Convention system as a whole. While the 2015 Annual Report of the Committee of Ministers on the execution of the Court‟s judgments shows that a new record number of cases were closed in 2015, there is a continued increase of cases pending for more than five years. In 2011 these cases accounted for 20% of the total number of cases, while by the end of 2015 that figure had risen to 55%. The number of „leading‟ cases pending, those indicating structural problems, has also risen steeply from 278 cases in 2011 to 685 cases in 2015. The average time it takes to close a case is generally around 4 years, however in some States that figure