Justice as a requirement for the effectiveness of law-enforcement acts

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the understanding of the category «justice» in the context of understanding the latter as a requirement for the effectiveness of law enforcement acts. It has been established that justice at the level of legislation literally permeates the basic Ukrainian legislation. This concerns, first of all, numerous regulatory legal acts of a constitutional nature and basic codifications in various branches of the legal system. The principles of justice are enshrined in the current legislation of Ukraine, in particular in the following legislative acts: Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, Economic Code of Ukraine, Criminal Code of Ukraine, Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine, etc. In practice, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine implements the principle of justice in its decisions. It is proven that the requirements of justice cannot be absorbed by the concepts of good faith and reasonableness, but have an independent meaning. It is impossible to agree with the fact that the requirements of justice of a law-enforcement act exist in a «hidden form», because its concept and content can be defined by a specific term. A decision that violates the principles of good faith and reasonableness cannot be recognized as fair. At the same time, a good faith and reasonable decision may theoretically contradict the principle of justice. It was concluded that justice as a requirement for the effectiveness of law-enforcement acts must be perceived in a broad sense - in relation to the entire process of establishing facts, their research, qualification and, ultimately, the law­enforcement act itself. This makes it possible to follow the influence of all stages of law enforcement activities on the adoption of fair law enforcement acts, to evaluate their effectiveness, based on the fact that such decisions acquire not only legal, but also moral force. The legal criteria for the fairness of a law-enforcement act are: the fairness of the law itself (as a general criterion) and the fairness of the normative legal acts that were used during the adoption of the law-enforcement act (as a direct criterion). The justice of a law-enforcement act depends not only on its legality and reasonableness, but also on its compliance with the principles of social justice and moral norms.