Melnyk A. A. The quality of the law: the analysis of doctrinal approaches
Realization of social reforms is directly related to the systematic, efficient and effective functioning of the current legislation. Particularly important in this connection are problems of the quality of the law, that is, the set of necessary features, properties and qualities that are inherent in the existing normative and legal acts of higher legal force. The experience of scientific understanding of the quality of the law is an important direction in the development of jurisprudence, which needs its further generalization and practical implementation.
Theoretical aspects of the problems of the quality of the law were investigated in the writings M. Artykutsy, I. Bily, V. Golovchenko, V. Kovalsky, N. Onischenko, N. Parkhomenko, S. Trostiuk, O. Yuschyka. However, without diminishing the work of these scholars, it is necessary to focus attention on the lack of comprehensive monographic studies of the quality of the law, the need to establish the contribution of the outstanding jurists of European legal science in the development of the identified problem; the need to fill gaps in the technical legal analysis of the quality of the law and the use of existing foreign experience in this area, as well as the need for a radical rethinking of the quality of the law category both in terms of content and forms of expression, place and practical significance in the system of legal technology.
The purpose of this publication is to analyze and generalize existing approaches to the concept of “quality of the law” and to substantiate its author’s vision.
Problems of the quality of the law in Soviet legal science, although not central to legal science, however, need to be noted that it was during this period that a sound scientific basis for the study of the quality of the law was laid. In spite of the excessive ideology of ideas justified during this period, many of them have not lost their relevance to this day.
In our opinion, all the signs that form the quality of the law, it is expedient to differentiate into two types:
1) signs characterizing the law as a form (source) of law, as a normative legal act, adopted by the competent authorities of the state;
2) signs inherent in the rules of law, which form the direct content of the law as a regulator of social relations.
The lawfulness of the proposed division of the features that form the quality of the law is seen first of all in the fact that the signs characterizing the law as a form of law are its attributes, that is, obligatory signs. And the absence of at least one of them deprives the law of the quality of the form of law, transforms it into an objectively-wrongful act. On the contrary, a significant number of characteristics characterizing the content of the law as a regulator of social relations has a quantitative expression and may, in certain respects, have different intensity of manifestation, which does not affect the loss of the quality of the law of the source of law. Each group of signs of the quality of the law represents their totality. The law, being a multi-faceted phenomenon, has an unlimited number of properties that differently characterize its quality. To assess the quality of the law there is no need to detect the intensity of manifestation of all the features of the law without exception - the study should be limited to the study of the most significant of them.
The quality of the law as a source of law is a prerequisite for the application of the rules of law contained therein. However, in order for the law to be truly effective, perfect, ensure the regulation of social relations, it is required to ensure the proper quality of the rules of law that form its content.
The technical and legal criteria of the actual legal features of the law, which characterize it as the regulator of social relations, are normativity, general compulsion, completeness and specificity of normative-legal regulation.
Key words: the law, the properties of the law, the quality of the law, the content of the law.
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