The article analyzes criminal legislation of France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain on the issue of securing secrecy of correspondence.

On the basis of the studies conducted, the authors concluded that a French legislator assumes responsibility for preparing or attempting to commit the crime within the framework of one article, and the penalties for these alternative acts are the same. Thus, only the disclosure, destruction, detention of correspondence or the establishment of technical devices intended to intercept such correspondence are equated with severity to direct reading of its contents. In addition, further use or disclosure of the messages are recognized as criminally punishable at the level of reading, although, in our opinion, committing of such acts should lead to more stringent liability. Another peculiarity of the Criminal Code of France is that for committing crimes against private life, both physical and legal persons can be criminally responsible.

It is noted in the article that the CC of the Federal Republic of Germany in § 206 that establishes criminal liability for breaking the secrecy of postal and telecommunications communications. This norm was introduced into the CC of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Supplemental Law to the Telecommunications Act on December 17, 1997. Concepts of postal and telecommunication secrecy are formulated in rubric 5 of the above paragraph. According to this norm, postal secrecy means detailed information about the postal circulation of a certain person, as well as the contents of his/her postal items, etc.

After analyzing the articles of Swiss criminal law, the author came to the conclusion that responsibility for breaking the secrecy of telephone conversations is not excluded by these norms. At the same time, unlike the CC of Ukraine, responsibility for breaking the secrecy of correspondence and secrecy of telephone conversations in Switzerland is provided for in various criminal and legal norms.The article states that Sweden’s criminal law specifically provides for liability, even for preparing to break telecommunications secrecy, although the measure and types of penalties for the mentioned crimes are completely identical.Book II of the Spanish CC, adopted in 1995, contains the whole Section X, entitled “Crimes against privacy, the right to personal image and security of residence”. The greatest interest, as the author notes, article 197, which is placed in Chapter 1, “Disclosure and Distribution of Secret Information” of this section. The article stipulates criminal liability for taking over, for the purpose of disclosure of secret information or violation of another person’s privacy without his/her knowing with papers, letters, e-mail messages or other documents, as well as for intercepting telephone conversations and using various technical means for listening, transferring, recording or playing back audio or images or other means of communication. The article states that for committing these acts, in contrast to Article 163 of the CC of Ukraine, a legislator of Spain provided for fairly severe penalties in the form of deprivation of liberty for a term from one to four years and a fine in the amount from twelve to twenty-four monthly salaries.Key words: secrecy, correspondence, post, criminal and legal protection.REFERENCES

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