Decent level of persons’ social security in Ukraine: problems of legislative conceptual apparatus

Abstract

The article concerns research of problematic issues of conceptual apparatus of the legislation of Ukraine on state social standards and social guarantees in the context of the effectiveness of the realization of the person's right to a decent level of social security. The author reveals the meaning of such notions as: state social standards; social norms; social guarantees; the main state social guarantees; other state social guarantees; social guarantees of support on the basis of the analysis of the constitutional norms, current legislation of Ukraine and practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The author justifies the necessity to reform legislation that regulates establishment and application of state social guarantees in Ukraine by using formal-logical and comparative methods for clarifying the consistency of legal norms. The problem of the insurance of ensuring the uniformity of the content and scope of the concept of "social guarantees", as well as correlated legislative concepts is emphasized in the article. Researching of the targeted use of state social guarantees in the mechanism of realizing the person's right to decent living conditions, contributed to the conclusion of the need to consolidate the definition of "the main source of human existence" in the Law of Ukraine "On State Social Standards and State Social Guarantees". The author clarifies that the notion “social benefits”, which is used in the laws of Ukraine, acts of the body of constitutional jurisdiction, by-laws, reports of ministries, is different in essence and content. Current national legislation does not contain unified definition and the list of “social benefits”. This has a negative impact on the mechanism of ensuring decent living conditions of a person by means of social protection. The author emphasizes that the definition “vulnerable categories of people” refers to those persons who are in difficult life circumstances and have the right to social services, and therefore cannot be used, especially in the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, to denote all subjects of the right to social security.