THE PRINCIPLE OF RESPECT FOR HUMAN DIGNITY AS A LIMIT ON THE ENFORCEMENT OF LABOUR DISCIPLINE IN THE NATIONAL POLICE OF UKRAINE UNDER MARTIAL LAW

Abstract

This article examines the principle of respect for human dignity as a foundational limit on the enforcement of labour discipline in the National Police of Ukraine under martial law. The relevance of the subject stems from the fact that, during full-scale war, police officers are required to perform their duties under conditions of intensified workload, heightened psychological strain, expanded functional responsibilities, and increased public expectations of loyalty, resilience, discipline, and institutional reliability. In such circumstances, the strengthening of disciplinary control may appear objectively necessary. However, this does not remove the need to determine where the boundary lies between the legitimate reinforcement of service discipline, justified by national-security concerns, and excessive interference with the labour, private, and personal sphere of a police officer, which would be incompatible with the requirement to respect human dignity.

The purpose of the article is to identify and analyse the current problems involved in implementing the principle of respect for human dignity within the framework of labour-discipline enforcement in the National Police of Ukraine under martial law, and to clarify the significance of that principle for defining the limits of permissible disciplinary influence over police personnel. The study is based on an analysis of the Constitution of Ukraine, the disciplinary legislation governing the National Police of Ukraine, the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the European Code of Police Ethics, and contemporary academic literature on human dignity, the labour rights of law-enforcement personnel, and disciplinary liability under martial law.

It is argued that, even under martial law, human dignity retains the status of a dominant criterion for assessing the lawfulness of disciplinary regulation and disciplinary practice. The article demonstrates that one of the central problems in this field lies in the manner in which legal and moral-ethical requirements are combined. In practice, ethical standards may begin to operate as an autonomous basis for expanding disciplinary control. The absence of sufficient legal certainty in such standards, together with the use of evaluative notions such as the “undermining of the authority of the police”, creates conditions for discretionary and potentially arbitrary interference with the rights of police officers.

Particular attention is paid to the progressive blurring of the boundary between on-duty and off-duty conduct, especially in the digital environment. The article argues that, under wartime conditions, there is a growing tendency to treat almost any public conduct of a police officer outside working hours as potentially discipline-relevant, even where the connection between such conduct and the legitimate interests of the service is neither direct nor properly established. In this respect, the author warns against a shift from the lawful strengthening of the public interest to its practical absolutisation, whereby privacy and freedom of expression risk being displaced from the sphere of effective legal protection.

The article also analyses the procedural risks generated by the exceptional wartime rules governing disciplinary proceedings in the National Police of Ukraine. These include the simplification of internal investigations, the weakening of procedural separation between the initiation, investigation, and resolution of a disciplinary case, and the preservation of a state of disciplinary uncertainty through the possibility of revising disciplinary measures that have already been imposed. It is shown that such mechanisms, although understandable from an organisational and managerial perspective, may diminish the practical reality of an officer’s right to be heard, to know the substance of the allegations, and to defend himself or herself effectively.

The author concludes that the principle of respect for human dignity should be understood not as a merely declarative value, but as a genuine normative benchmark for limiting disciplinary power. It must serve, first, to prevent the transformation of disciplinary law into an instrument of excessive organisational control over the individual; secondly, to ensure that off-duty conduct is not subjected to unjustified disciplinary intrusion; and thirdly, to prevent systemic deficiencies in the functioning of the police institution from being shifted onto individual officers in the form of personal disciplinary liability.

Keywords: disciplinary influence, human dignity, labour discipline, legal certainty, martial law, public interest.