DOCTRINAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES OF THE PHENOMENON OF LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE STATE

Abstract

The article defines the peculiarities of the constitutional institutionalization of the state's legal responsibility, as well as the ways of further specifying this responsibility in the sectoral legislation and implementation of the relevant constitutional regulations in the human-state relationship.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the doctrinal and constitutional foundations of the phenomenon of legal responsibility of the state.

Back in the 60's of the twentieth century, analyzing legal responsibility in the international law, the French researcher M. Sorensen noted that "no other topic raises as much controversy as the responsibility of states, and no other sphere is so vague and confusing in terms of theory." And this is quite understandable, since until recently the perception of responsibility as a purely individual quality of a person, which cannot be extended to the state as a bearer of public power, was dominant.

Since then, legal science has been enriched by a considerable amount of scientific research in the field of research on the phenomenon of legal responsibility of the state, both within general theoretical jurisprudence and within the branch of legal sciences. Despite the unconditionally purely scientific and theoretical value of such developments, they still retain considerable applicability, especially in the case of fundamental constitutional reforms in the country aimed at institutionalizing, modernizing and/or making a specified state-legal phenomenon.

The constitutional-legal science still states that "the institute of state responsibility for a person functions in Ukraine at the level of the legal principle, but it is undoubted that such an important institution must find a clear normative fixation at the constitutional level." However, this thesis cannot be accepted. According to the analysis, the aforementioned institute found its implementation and systematic disclosure in the Ukrainian Constitution in 1996, although, of course, taking into account the present and the accumulated experience, it needs significant rethinking and corresponding modernization.

In this regard, it should be reminded that in the context of the current constitutional reform, the implementation of the model of responsible state government as an important one in Ukraine remains an urgent task component of the European constitutional and legal tradition. Such implementation, in turn, involves not only the normative formalization of certain legal concepts, but also, first and foremost, a deep understanding of the essential elements that need urgent implementation in the sphere of justice. First of all, these include the concepts of the rule of law (or rule of law, in the terminology of S.P. Golovaty) and the rule of law, which are constitutionalized in Ukraine (Articles 1, 8 of the Basic Law of the State). In the context of implementation of these regulations of particular importance and relevance is the issue of ensuring reality of the phenomenon of legal responsibility of the state, because, as we know, "the responsibility of the state to the citizen is one of the basic principles of the rule of law." The reality of such responsibility depends not only on the completeness of the settlement of relations in the sphere of citizen-state interaction, but also on how the relevant norms work in practice.

However, it should be noted that in the history of political and legal thought, it is known that the responsibility of the state for a long time was considered inappropriate, which was peculiar to the absolutist state regimes and political and legal ideologies that "sanctified" their functioning.