Police Officers’ Presumption of Innocence: History, Contemporaneousness and Possibility to Implement into Ukrainian Legislation

V. V.  Sokurenko

doi:10.32631/v.2021.3.14

V. V. Sokurenko Joint-stock company «Legal Strategy» https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6879-7376

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32631/v.2021.3.14

Keywords: police officers’ presumption of innocence, qualification immunity, National Police, social protection, policing principles, United States of America, judicial precedent.

Abstract

The article is focused on the analysis of the legal category of police officers’ presumption of innocence. Accordingly, the purpose of the research is to provide comprehensive characteristics of police officers’ presumption of innocence, taking into account international practice of its formation and development. To achieve this purpose, the author has formulated the following tasks: 1) study of the historical aspect of the origin and formation of police officers’ presumption of innocence, including within the qualification immunity of police officers; 2) analysis of the practice of applying qualification immunity in the United States of America; 3) objective reveal of the content and essence of police officers’ presumption of innocence; 4) outlining the possibilities of introducing the police officers’ presumption of innocence into the legislation of Ukraine.

The expediency of introducing police officers’ qualification immunity (police officers’ presumption of innocence) is based on a number of arguments, in particular: police officers need qualification immunity to perform their professional duties: they perform important tasks that may require immediate decisions in stressful situations, but lack of qualification immunity may lead that police officers do not dare to act when it is most needed; lack of qualification immunity can lead to unjustified police trials, when judges and jurors can review decisions, may lead to significant budget expenditures; police officers do not have absolute immunity and can be prosecuted for violating clearly established constitutional rights, despite the perspective of the availability of qualification immunity; police officers should not be forced to apply “abstract law”, i.e. those provisions that are not explicitly provided in the current legislation, but follow from its provisions, to specific circumstances, we cannot expect from police officers to be scholars in law sphere and use legal arguments during the arrest; police officers should be able to act professionally without worrying about prosecution.

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Author Biography

V. V. Sokurenko, Joint-stock company «Legal Strategy»

Candidate (Ph.D.) of Juridical Sciences.

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