Doctrinal documents and doctrinal legal acts: theoretical and methodological analysis of content and correlation of concepts

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the essence of legal doctrine and its role in forming the legal policy of the state. Legal doctrine as a system of dominant perceptions of law in society plays a multifunctional role in the legal life of society: transforming qualitatively positive social and professional sense of justice, legal doctrine contributes to the formation of the foundations of law-making and to improving the practice of law-enforcement and law-implementation. In Ukraine legal doctrine is not officially recognized as the source (form) of law. At the same time, modern European integration processes actualize the issue of need to rethink the essence and purpose of the legal doctrine, its role in the law-making process of the Ukrainian state, since the concept of human-centrism, which occupies a chief place in the European doctrine of law, encourages the Ukrainian authorities not only to reform national legislation according to the European and international standards, but also to fill the laws and other legal acts with new content. Therefore, the author puts the aim to substantiate the importance of legal doctrine that forms the Ukraine’s legal policy, because this issue has not only theoretical but also applied character. The content of such categories as “doctrinal documents” and “doctrinal legal acts” are analyzed in the context of their common and distinctive features, as well as their role in forming and implementing the state’s legal policy. It is noted that the legal doctrine, produced by scientific collectives, acquires the form of doctrinal documents – concepts and doctrines, which play a leading role in forming the bases of law-making and improving law-enforcement practice. Doctrinal documents should form the conceptual foundations for the development of legislation, and therefore, being approved by the authorities, they are transformed into doctrinal legal acts and attain binding nature. There defined doctrinal documents as a form of legal policy, while doctrinal legal acts are the means of legal policy. Doctrinal acts include norms-principles, norms-goals, norms-definitions and other norms of a general nature, which determine the actual problems in a certain sphere of public administration and propose a set of measures needed to solve these issues in the future. Doctrinal legal acts contain conceptual scientifically substantiated provisions that serve as the basis for the development and adoption of specific normative legal acts of a regulatory nature for reforming relevant sectors of the economy. Practical problems of implementing the majority of doctrinal legal acts are noted. It is proposed to solve the problem of legalization of doctrinal legal acts by defining their hierarchical place in the system of normative legal acts due to adopting the long-awaited Law of Ukraine “On Normative Legal Acts”. Keywords: legal policy of the state, legal doctrine, doctrinal documents, doctrinal legal acts, means of realization of legal policy.