APPLICATION OF THE RULE OF LAW IN JUDICIAL PRACTICE

Author(s):  
Lyudmyla Bogachova ◽  

The article defines the concept of the principle of the rule of law both in the narrow and broad sense. In the narrow sense, the principle of the rule of law is understood as the rule of law over legislation, and in the broad sense - as the rule of law over the state, state arbitrariness. Different approaches to disclosing the content of the principle of the rule of law in national and European legal doctrines are systematized. The lack of a single generally accepted concept of the principle of "rule of law" is emphasized. The decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are analyzed; attention is focused on their interpretation of the rule of law. The realization of the principle of the rule of law, primarily presupposes the domination of inalienable and inviolable human rights and freedoms over the political power of the state, and also requires quality laws and observance of the principle of legal certainty. The interpretation of the principle of the rule of law in the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is considered. The CCU emphasizes that the rule of law is first and foremost the "rule of law in society"; characterizes the principle, linking it to the ideas of social justice, freedom and equality, without which it is impossible to imagine true human development and existence. The Constitutional Court calls justice as one of the basic principles of law, which is crucial in defining it as a regulator of social relations, one of the universal dimensions of law. Examples of application of the rule of law in the practice of the Supreme Court of Ukraine are given. Judges not only make a formal reference to the rule of law, but also try to analyze and disclose the content of its constituent elements (requirements) within a specific legal case. The main problems that hinder the effective implementation and realization of the rule of law in judicial practice are identified, namely - the lack of proper regulation and official interpretation; low quality of laws and legislative process; excessive number of conflicting laws; low level of legal awareness and legal culture of Ukrainian society, and early stage of civil society development in Ukraine. It is concluded that the rule of law is a principle whose main content is expressed in the following aspects: ensuring the rule of law over political power; subordination of state institutions to the needs of human rights protection and ensuring their implementation; priority of these rights over all other values of democratic, social, and legal state; preventing the manifestation of arbitrariness of state power, as well as ensuring compliance with the requirements of justice.

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-134
Author(s):  
Yu.A. Shevchenko ◽  
O.V. Kharytonova

This article is devoted to the analysis of the current legislation of Ukraine, as well as judicial practice in the context of the need to enter information in the declaration of a person authorized to perform the functions of the state or local government, namely the column "Financial Liabilities", in the form of surety, and the problem of providing a criminal legal assessment in the context of the possibility of the acts qualification under Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (hereinafter - the Criminal Code of Ukraine). These issues nowadays acquire the status of an exceptional legal problem due to the lack of a single law enforcement practice, and therefore require theoretical and practical consideration. In this regard, the article focuses on the analysis of certain provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption", consideration of the crime under Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, as well as consideration of the judicial practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court Ukraine, courts of appeal and local courts. Much of the author's attention is focused on the concept of legal nature and the institution of bail in general. In doing so, the author explored the above issues through the lens of human rights protection, based on the understanding of the essence of the principle of legal certainty, which is part of the concept of the rule of law. The conclusions suggested proposals as for improving the question that author discussed by amending national anti-corruption legislation in order to enable it to qualify the act provided for in Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the form of failure to enter information in the declaration column "Financial liabilities" of the persons authorized to perform the functions of state or local government in the presence of surety. In particular, the author emphasized that formulation of the norm, which defines the concept of "financial liabilities", makes it impossible to apply it in the context of qualifying a crime under Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine due to lack of legal certainty, which makes it impossible to maintain the principle the rule of law, and therefore a priori, human rights and freedoms will be violated.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-33
Author(s):  
R. V. Chernolutsky

The article is devoted to the analysis of the institute of constitutional complaint as a new mechanism of protection of human rights and freedoms for Ukrainian practice. The significance of the constitutional complaint as a new institution of the constitutional law of Ukraine lies in two aspects. First, it is an important additional mechanism (means) to protect individual rights and freedoms. This increases the impact of law on public relations, and the state strengthens its status as a legal entity. This also strengthens the applicability of the rule of law as one of the fundamental principles of law. Secondly, the importance of the constitutional complaint as a separate institution is related to the functioning of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which is legally called to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution of Ukraine. A person's appeal to a body of constitutional jurisdiction with a complaint emphasizes the closeness of the entire judicial system to a person, as well as the desire of the state to properly protect his rights. Thus, at the individual (complainant) level, the constitutional complaint increases the importance of the rule of law (due to the protection of human rights and freedoms), and at the public level (constitutional jurisdiction) - promotes the rule of law as the foundation of the entire legal system. The author reviews the current legislation in this area of relations, focuses on the features of the constitutional complaint and aspects of its significance, as well as clarifies some problematic aspects of its implementation in Ukraine. It was noted that due to this the function of protection of human rights by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine will be more effectively and fully implemented.


Author(s):  
Egidijus Küris

Western legal tradition gave the birth to the concept of the rule of law. Legal theory and constitutional justice significantly contributed to the crystallisation of its standards and to moving into the direction of the common concept of the rule of law. The European Court of Human Rights uses this concept as an interpretative tool, the extension of which is the quality of the law doctrine, which encompasses concrete requirements for the law under examination in this Court, such as prospectivity of law, its foreseeability, clarity etc. The author of the article, former judge of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court and currently the judge of the European Court of Human Rights, examines how the latter court has gradually intensified (not always consistently) its reliance on the rule of law as a general principle, inherent in all the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, to the extent that in some of its judgments it concentrates not anymore on the factual situation of an individual applicant, but, first and foremost, on the examination of the quality of the law. The trend is that, having found the quality of the applicable law to be insufficient, the Court considers that the mere existence of contested legislation amounts to an unjustifiable interference into a respective right and finds a violation of respective provisions of the Convention. This is an indication of the Court’s progressing self-approximation to constitutional courts, which are called to exercise abstract norm-control.La tradición occidental alumbró la noción del Estado de Derecho. La teoría del Derecho y la Justicia Constitucional han contribuido decisivamente a la cristalización de sus estándares, ayudando a conformar un acervo común en torno al mismo. El Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos emplea la noción de Estado de Derecho como una herramienta interpretativa, fundamentalmente centrada en la doctrina de la calidad de la ley, que implica requisitos concretos que exige el Tribunal tales como la claridad, la previsibilidad, y la certeza en la redacción y aplicación de la norma. El autor, en la actualidad Juez del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos y anterior Magistrado del Tribunal Constitucional de Lituania, examina cómo el primero ha intensificado gradualmente (no siempre de forma igual de consistente) su confianza en el Estado de Derecho como principio general, inherente a todos los preceptos que forman el Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos, hasta el punto de que en algunas de sus resoluciones se concentra no tanto en la situación de hecho del demandante individual sino, sobre todo y ante todo, en el examen de esa calidad de la ley. La tendencia del Tribunal es a considerar que, si observa que la ley no goza de calidad suficiente, la mera existencia de la legislación discutida supone una interferencia injustificable dentro del derecho en cuestión y declara la violación del precepto correspondiente del Convenio. Esto implica el acercamiento progresivo del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos a los Tribunales Constitucionales, quienes tienen encargado el control en abstracto de la norma legal.


2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 167-171
Author(s):  
Mohammad Fadel

This work grew out of a series of lectures that were delivered over atwo-year period between 1996 and 1998 at the Centre of Islamic andMiddle Eastern Law (CIMEL) at the School of Oriental and AfricanStudies (SOAS), University of London, on the genera] subject of the rule oflaw in the Middle East and Islamic countries. Subsequently, materials wereadded dealing particularly with issues relating to human rights law. Thecontributors to this work are a combination of legal academics, human rights activists, lawyers and judges, who hale from various countries in theArab world, Iran, the United States, Great Britain and Germany.There are a total of fourteen separate chapters, of varying length andquality. The book is not lengthy - including notes and authors’ biographies,it is 180 pages long. The average length of each chapter is between ten andfifteen pages. Despite the diversity of countries surveyed, all the essays areconcerned with generic questions regarding the rule of law, whether in atheoretical sense, viz., whether the notion that legitimate governmentalaction is limited to those acts that are deemed lawful by a pre-existing setor rules, or in a practical sense, viz., assuming that the formal legal regimeof a given state recognizes the rule of law in a theoretical sense, whetherthe coercive apparatus of the state in fact recognizes legal limitations onits conduct.Perhaps the most interesting (it is certainly the most lengthy, at 35 pages),and most important, essay in this work is the very fiit one, authored byAdel Omar Sherif, an Egyptian judge, wherein the author provides a digestof the landmark decisions of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court.While the work can be criticized for taking on the appearance of a meresurvey of decisions, without taking a critical perspective to the Court’sprecedents, it is nonetheless a very valuable contribution for those lawyersand scholars who cannot read Arabic but nonetheless wish to gain insightinto Egypt’s legal culture. The modest task of relating the decisions ofEgypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court is especially important given thecliches regarding the absence of effective judicial institutions in the Arabworld. Sherifs contribution effectively dispels that myth. His article revealsthe Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court to be a vibrant institution thattakes its constitutional duties seriously, and discharges those duties withintegrity, and when it finds that the government has acted unlawfully, it willstrike down the offensive legislation, or rule against the government ...


2020 ◽  
pp. 73-108
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Pearson

This chapter explains Whig understanding of political power, the rule of law, and the proper scope of state or public action.


2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-729
Author(s):  
Jacques Zylberberg

This essay undertakes a review of national and international law to demonstrate that law is mainly an ideological and variable instrument of the State and of the United Nations, which is a by-product of the states. In this perspective, the author opposes the pragmatical ideology of resistance against the sovereign state to the juridical legitimation and the behaviour of the States who reluctantly have conceded some civil and political rights. Those rights are endangered by the growing bureaucratization of the state, the inflation of the juridical norms and rules, in addition to the permanent repressive characters of the State. The criticism of the contradiction and the variation of the rule of law when it relates to "human rights" is also extended to international law as well as to the international organizations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-253
Author(s):  
Prianter Jaya Hairi

In 2017, Constitutional Court has received three calls for judicial reviews regarding treachery (makar) article in the Criminal Code. These articles deemed to be contradicting with the principle of legal certainty and freedom of expression. This study analyzes the important issue that is being debate in those judicial reviews. One of those is about the argument which says that the absence of the definition of treachery in the Criminal Code has caused a violation of legal certainty. Besides, the rule of treachery in the Criminal Code has also considered to have caused a violation of freedom of expression which has been guaranteed by Constitution. Analysis shows that the absence of treachery definition in the Criminal Code is not something that instantly becomes a problem in its application that causing the loss of legal certainty. Law enforcer, especially judge, in enforcing the rule of law must always use the method of law interpretation which appropriate with legal norm. With systematic interpretation, treachery can be interpreted according to the sentence of the rule as a unity of the legal system. In this case, the term treachery as regulated in Article 87 of the Criminal Code can be systematically interpreted as the basis for Article 104-Article 108 of the Criminal Code, Article 130 of the Criminal Code, and Article 140 of the Criminal Code which regulates various types of treason and their respective legal sanctions for the perpetrators. Further, on the argument that the articles of treachery in the Criminal Code also can not necessarily be said to limit the freedom of expression, because every citizen’s freedom has limitation, including the limitation of law and human rights. AbstrakPada tahun 2017, Mahkamah Konstitusi telah menerima tiga kali judicial reviewterhadap pasalpasal tindak pidana makar dalam Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana (KUHP). Pasal-pasal ini dipandang bertentangan dengan prinsip kepastian hukum dan kebebasan berekspresi. Tulisan ini menganalisis substansi yang menjadi perdebatan dalam perkara judicial review tersebut. Di antaranya perdebatan mengenai tidak adanya definisi istilah makar dalam KUHP yang menyebabkan persoalan kepastian hukum. Selain itu, pengaturan tindak pidana makar dalam KUHP juga dinilai melanggar kebebasan berekspresi yang telah dijamin oleh konstitusi. Analisis terhadap persoalanpersoalan tersebut menunjukkan bahwa ketiadaan definisi kata “makar” dalam KUHP bukanlah merupakan sesuatu yang serta merta langsung menjadi persoalan dalam penerapannya sehingga menyebabkan hilangnya kepastian hukum. Penegak hukum, terutama hakim, dalam menegakkan peraturan hukum selalu menggunakan metode penafsiran hukum yang sesuai dengan kaidah ilmu hukum. Dengan penafsiran sistematis, makar dapat dimaknai sesuai kalimat dari peraturan sebagai suatu kesatuan sistem hukum. Dalam hal ini, istilah makar yang diatur dalam Pasal 87 KUHP, secara sistematis dapat ditafsirkan sebagai dasar bagi Pasal 104-Pasal 108 KUHP, Pasal 130 KUHP, dan Pasal 140 KUHP yang mengatur tentang jenis makar beserta sanksi hukumnya masing-masing bagi para pelakunya. Selain itu, mengenai argumen bahwa pasal-pasal makar dalam KUHP berpotensi melanggar HAM dan dipandang bertentangan dengan konstitusi dapat dikatakan tidak beralasan. Sebab kebebasan HAM setiap orang tidak tanpa batas, di antaranya dibatasi nilai-nilai agama, keamanan, dan ketertiban umum.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Volodymyr USTYMENKO ◽  
◽  
Ruslan DZHABRAILOV ◽  

It is noted that an important quality of legal regulation should be the effectiveness of the method and means chosen by the state to promote the achievement of the planned socio-economic result. Despite the fact that some principles of normative project work have been covered at the legislative level (in particular, on the example of legislation in the field of regulatory policy), the practice of adopting normative legal acts the effectiveness of which remains questionable continues. One of the reasons for this state of legal regulation of social relations is the improper consideration, and sometimes conscious disregard for theoretical and applied constructions that have been substantiated within the framework of legal and economic science. As a result, this leads to the establishment of an unjust order in a certain area of public relations, which threatens the further sustainable development of the state. In view of this, attention is focused on the defects of the implementation of legal principles, especially the principle of the rule of law, in the field of legal regulation of economic relations, which leads to the imaginary effectiveness of the relevant legal acts. It is proved that the effectiveness of legal regulation of public relations will be evidenced not only by the rate of achievement of the expected result at the expense of the minimum necessary resources of economic entities, citizens and the state (i.e. the economic criterion), but also the degree of compliance with the rule of law, which will allow to talk about promoting the adoption by a legal act of the ideology of justice. Based on the analysis of some examples of legislative practice in the field of taxation, it is established that the adoption of regulations contrary to the rule of law has led to the direction of tax policy to achieve socio-economic results that contradict the principles of tax policy as a type of economic policyand principles of social policy of the state in terms of income redistribution set out in strategic documents.


Author(s):  
Olga T. Tur ◽  
Marta B. Kravchyk ◽  
Iryna Yu. Nastasiak ◽  
Myroslava M. Sirant ◽  
Nataliya V. Stetsyuk

National and international courts are increasingly turning to generally recognised international legal principles to regulate private law relations. This is necessitated, in particular, by the fact that the issues and disputes that modern participants in private law relations address to the courts are becoming more widespread. Thus, the practice of international justice and justice in Ukraine demonstrates that such international principles as the principle of justice, equality, non-discrimination, evolutionary interpretation, proportionality, legal certainty, and the rule of law are increasingly used in dispute resolution. This study investigated the application of international principles in private law relations. Based on the general legal research methods, the nature of international legal principles was analysed, the study considered their application in the above-mentioned Ukrainian court cases to the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the Constitutional and Anti-Corruption Courts of Ukraine. The study investigated the judicial practice of the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions raise the issue of violation of rights and fundamental freedoms stipulated in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and non-compliance with basic international legal principles, as well as highlighted the main trends of these disputes. Based on the results of the analysis, the study identified an insufficient level of the content specification regarding the principle of the rule of law and its features in the current legislation of Ukraine, which must be properly observed by both state authorities and citizens of Ukraine. Based on the conducted research, the authors formulated their scientific positions and conclusions aimed at improving the system of principles of private law relations


2020 ◽  
pp. 118-157
Author(s):  
Nikita Agarwal

This essay seeks to draw upon the updates of the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JagLAG), a group of women lawyers working in the conflict-torn region of South Chhattisgarh representing adivasis of Bastar at various sites of law and documenting law in conflict. Using the JagLAG updates as archives of the life of law in Bastar, the chapter draws upon the life of law in a terrain of violence, wherein the Rule of Law collapses under the weight of the gun and the subject of law is dehumanized; reduced to a development project of the state requiring uplifting and is denied all human rights. Divided into three parts, the chapter maps out the capacity of law to fashion itself to suit the needs of the state apparatus which grows increasingly offensive and brazenly disregards human rights, silencing any form of dissent as it storms through the forests of Bastar, destroying countless lives in its stead. Notwithstanding the bourgeoisie nature of law which by design seeks to alienate and oppress, the chapter leaves behind questions worth pondering over. Are there possibilities in the law of articulating, ascertaining and asserting the voices of the marginalized, of those who are perceived as enemies of the state, mere casualties in the State’s endeavour of combating a law and order situation or is vesting any energy and hope in such a possibility of law a useless exercise?


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