Legislative regulation of the powers of intelligence agencies: a comparative analysis

Abstract

Based on the comparison of the Law of Ukraine "On Intelligence" with the legislative acts of some countries, the content, direction and completeness of the powers defined for the intelligence agencies have been clarified. The quality of legal regulations on the rights and responsibilities of intelligence agencies, their proximity to European standards has been studied. This is especially true of the problems of guaranteeing and respecting the constitutional rights of man and citizen during the implementation of intelligence measures against them within the defined powers. It is proved that the state, represented by the legislator, transfers to the intelligence body as one of the subjects of the intelligence sphere a certain set of rights and responsibilities to dispose of them to achieve goals, solve tasks and perform the functions specified by law. Peculiarities of the Ukrainian legislation concerning definition of powers of intelligence bodies are investigated. It is noted that all the rights granted by the domestic legislature to intelligence agencies can be divided into four groups, among which only one group reflects the functionality of intelligence. The peculiarities of the legislative acts of Georgia, the Republic of Croatia, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Lithuania regarding the powers of the intelligence agencies have been determined. It is proposed considerthe positive experience of these countries to improve domestic legislation, namely: it is desirable to define separately in the law the rights and responsibilities of intelligence agencies; responsibilities should be formulated in such a way that they correspond to the rights of other intelligence actors; the rights and responsibilities of the heads of intelligence agencies should not be defined in the general sense, as for the heads of other state bodies, but in accordance with their special functionality; it is advisable to formulate the rights and responsibilities of intelligence officials to perform a specific task, function or to conduct a separate intelligence event. Keywords: national security, intelligence, intelligence agencies, legislative regulation of the powers of intelligence agencies.