The Role of Criminal Justice in The Fight Against Terrorism: Theoretical and Practical Aspects

Anastasiia Chystiakova (Candidate of Law Sciences (PhD), Associate Professor of the Department of State and Legal Disciplines, Faculty of Law, KROK University, Kyiv, Ukraine)
Yurii Shynkarov (PhD in Law, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Legal Regulation of Economics, Educational and Scientific Institute of Economics and Law, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Kharkiv, Ukraine)
Serhii Pekarskyi (PhD in Law, Associate Professor of the Department of Operational-Search Activity and Information Security, Educational and Scientific Institute for the Training of Specialists for Criminal Police Units named after E.O. Didorenko, Donetsk State Univer)
Pavlo Harasym (Doctor of Law, Associate Professor, Head of the Sambir District Police Department of the Main Police Department in Lviv Region, Sambir, Ukraine)
Volodymyr Yusupov (Doctor of Law, Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminalistics and Forensic Medicine of the National Academy of Internal Affairs, Kyiv, Ukraine)

Jurnal Cita Hukum
Vol. 14 No. 2 (2026): Summer Edition

Terrorism remains a primary force transforming and redefining contemporary justice systems, with long-term impacts, in turn, on criminal law, criminal procedure, the police, and international cooperation. This is a topical subject because democratic states are in the dilemma of having to constructively secure their populations against terrorist violence while upholding legality, due process, and rights, and avoiding undermining institutional legitimacy by over-securitization. This research paper aims to examine the role of criminal justice in the fight against terrorism from theoretical and practical perspectives, and the subject of the research is the criminal justice system used for crime control and justice in counter-terrorism practice and policy. The research relies on qualitative doctrinal-comparative and case-study institutional and systemic analysis of legal rules, judicial practice and international counter-terrorism sources. The findings are that criminal justice has normative, attributive, incapacitative, deterrent, legitimating, and evidentiary functions in counter-terrorism. It is argued that criminal justice is maximized through counter-terrorism when it functions not only by punishing finished attacks but also by legally structured intervention into financing, recruiting, training, conspiracy, and related preparatory acts. The practical importance of this paper is to provide a balanced criminal justice-centered model of counter-terrorism.