LEGAL STATUS OF A POLICE OFFICER DURING WAR OR FOREIGN MILITARY OCCUPATION

Abstract

The article offers the analysis of the legal status of a police officer under martial law. It is emphasized that since the very beginning of military aggression on the territory of Ukraine, especially during its active phase, the employees of the National Police of Ukraine have been taking direct part in fulfilment of various tasks aimed at ensuring the state sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity, as well as at repelling armed aggression against Ukraine, police officers participate in the performance of territorial defense tasks, implementing measures of the legal regime of martial law. However, during hostilities there are situations when police officers are captured by the Russian invaders. Two versions of such a capture are possible: when a police officer is captured while repelling armed aggression against Ukraine or when a police officer is captured while performing his professional duties. The analysis of the norms of the national legislation made it possible to arrive at the conclusion on the insufficient level of national legal regulation of the status of a police officer in the conditions of martial law. The paper defines three levels of international legal acts that characterize the legal status of police officers as participants in an armed conflict: 1) a set of general legal sources that regulate the legal features of waging war and the legal basis of the status of a person in war; 2) norms that define a special legal regime for the treatment of prisoners of war; 3) international legal norms that directly determine the legal status of police officers in the conditions of martial law. The article substantiates that the forces of law and order are not part of the entities listed in the Conventions, and therefore, according to the norms of international humanitarian law, they do not have the right to the status of legal combatants. At the same time, the norms of the IV Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights apply to police officers, according to which they must be guaranteed universal human rights (inviolability of life, health, private property, etc.). The author concludes that the involvement of police officers in the armed conflict on the territory of Ukraine is legitimate, and accordingly, a police officer, who participates in a military conflict on his own territory, should have the status of a legal combatant, just like a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.