TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CHILDREN IN UKRAINE

Torture and ill-treatment of children in Ukrainetions contain only a collection of data on the possible involvement of minorsin criminal activities .Currently, p. 4 art. 499 of the CPC of Ukraine (2012) requires taking a child,who has committed socially dangerous act that has signs of a crime and hasreached the age of 11, but has not reached the age of criminal responsibility,to remand house for up to 30 days. The Office of Criminal Juvenile Militia ofthe Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine has suggested to replace the phrase“the remand houses for children” with the phrase “children detention center”in the Law of Ukraine “On agencies and services for children”; however, thisamendment cannot change the substance of these institutions that remainthe places of unfreedom.Thus, the placement of children in remand houses as specified by law permitsthe ECHR to recognize violations of children’s rights to freedom underArticle 5, §1 of ECHR.5. It is worth noting that the Beijing Rules recommend to widely use terminationof cases involving juveniles resorting, if possible, in cases of minorsto formal trial by the competent authority.The national legislation does not provide for such a possibility, but on theother hand, this fact cannot be unambiguously called disadvantage, becauseit expands powers of the militia. But such a move by the legislator, given thenegative reputation of national enforcement bodies, should be completelybalanced.6. Given the scale of the planned reforms (including the possibility ofadoption of the new Criminal Code of Ukraine), it seems reasonable to approachthis issue comprehensively and consider introduce into appropriateregulations a separate system of criminal sanctions for children. Based on internationalexperience, such sanctions may include, for example, certain kindsof public works depending on the type of criminal offense. Building a systemof sanctions for children should be focused not on punishment, but on thecreation of adequate labor conditions, which will allow demonstrating a convictedchild the consequences of her / his actions (e. g., public works in hospitalsto assist victims of beatings, traffic fatalities etc.)Generally, it seems that the new CPC of Ukraine in the part of regulation ofprocedural relations involving children practically inherited a modified Chap-82 Ichin and Others vs. Ukraine, nos. 28189/04 and 28192/04, §39.