CRIMINAL LEGAL PROTECTION OF HUMAN LIFE AS THE UTMOST SOCIAL VALUE

Abstract

The article examines the issue of criminal law protection of human life as the highest social value. It is stated that the recognition of human life as a social value is fundamentally important: it means that human life is a value not only for oneself, but also for the whole society, for society. Moreover, since this value is the highest, no other phenomenon can be valued by society higher than human life, cannot, so to speak, exceed its value. Objectively, the right to life is the starting point, the criterion of the whole institution of rights and freedoms in a democratic society. And when it is argued that human rights are the highest social value, it means the person himself as the bearer of these rights. Without man, outside man, in isolation from him, any rights turn into something meaning abstraction. Thus, this right, of course, forms the basis of all other rights and freedoms. It is an absolute value of world civilization, as all other rights lose their meaning and significance in the event of death. Undoubtedly, man and his life are a basic, fundamental value with which all legal systems must relate. The right to life is given to man by nature (in some concepts – by God), but never – by the state or government. The latter are only obliged to recognize, respect and protect in every way this value, which dominates over all others. At the present stage, the concept of human rights has become a leading element of political liberalism, its cornerstone, almost metaphysical level. This is the fundamental level of general liberal theory, in which metaphysics is "the discovery of the final basis of things, their first and universal beginning," where one of the first to ask questions is about the "foundations" and the "first and universal beginning" of life. Human life is not only a subjective right, protected by legal norms, but also an independent social, spiritual and biological value. Protecting everyone's life is a top priority for criminal law. Many lawyers have devoted their work to the issue of criminal law protection of life, but their work does not cover all the problems of criminal law regarding comprehensive protection of life. One of such problems is the question of when life begins, and accordingly its criminal protection. Clarification of this issue is directly related to the possibility of bringing the perpetrators to justice for assault on life.