Evolution of the Institution of Official Misconduct in Ukraine’s Legal System

Abstract

The article develops a comprehensive doctrinal account of official misconduct in Ukraine by reframing it as an integrated system of liability that aligns disciplinary, administrative-offence and criminal-law responses through pre-defined procedural filters. The starting problem is the fragmented regulatory landscape and inconsistent enforcement, which oscillate between over-criminalisation and simulated accountability. Methodologically, the study combines historical-genetic, comparative and doctrinal analysis with elements of legal hermeneutics; the materials include codified legislation, secondary regulations and up-to-date Ukrainian scholarship (2023-2025). The originality lies in articulating a four-vector demarcation test - protected interest, intensity of public harm, status of the actor and procedural guarantees - and in introducing a public-harm scale that combines the kind, scope and motive of misconduct to guide a predictable choice of liability. The paper further expands the subject criterion to a broader category of public-power holders, encompassing not only traditional officials but also private providers of delegated public services and professional self-governing bodies; compliance is conceptualised as a bridge between internal discipline and external administrative control. Practically, the proposed framework standardises the algorithm for selecting the appropriate type of liability, minimises norm competition and prevents cumulation of sanctions for the same factual pattern, which is crucial under the conditions of martial law. The study concludes with policy pointers for legislative modernisation: a statutory cross-sectoral definition of ‘official misconduct’, a unified taxonomy of offences, coordinated jurisdictional rules and procedural filters between regimes of liability to safeguard proportionality and predictability in enforcement.