National and foreign experience in determining the legal status of guardianship bodies

Abstract

In the scientific article, the author conducted a scientific study of the peculiarities of the legal status of guardianship and guardianship bodies in Ukraine and other countries. On the basis of the conducted research, the author came to the conclusion that guardianship and guardianship bodies are distinguished by various authorities - local bodies of state executive power and local self-government bodies, separate departments of these bodies, services for children, which function under local state administrations and local councils, and as well as advisory and advisory support bodies. At the same time, the scientific literature notes the inexpediency of such a wide list of guardianship and guardianship bodies and the need to empower these bodies only with services for children. In the family law doctrine, there is no unanimity regarding the definition of the powers of the guardianship and guardianship authorities, which relate to the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of the child; they are contained in special legislation, which, however, does not fully correspond to each other and provides for the presence of a number of bodies that do not actually function or carry out activities formally, without having the appropriate competence (commissions for the protection of children's rights, departments of local state administrations), or at the same time function two bodies that are subordinate to each other (local state administrations and services for children). In the family law doctrine, there is no certainty in the issue of recognition of guardianship bodies and care by subjects of family relations; some scientists attribute them to the subjects of administrative-procedural relations or to the participants of legal relations of a complex nature, which are partly family, while others distinguish them as subjects of family relations. Analogues of guardianship and guardianship bodies in the states of the European Union and candidate states for EU membership are various types of bodies, including quasi-judicial ones, which perform both the functions of appointing, approving or dismissing a guardian, as well as supervising the observance of the rights of the child by its guardian (in France these functions are divided between the "family council” and the "guardianship judge”). Also, these bodies make decisions in family disputes regarding determining a child's surname, establishing his origin, his upbringing and maintenance.