The Institute for Exemplary Cases as a Procedural Tool to Ensure the Unity of Judicial Practice

Abstract

The presented research is devoted to the theoretically and practically relevant issue of consideration of exemplary cases by the Supreme Court as a separate procedural tool for ensuring the unity of judicial practice. The purpose of the article is to develop the existing doctrinal views on the problems of functioning of the outlined institute and search for ways to improve the relevant procedures within the national procedural system. Achieving the set goal became possible thanks to the use of a complex of scientific research methods, in particular, dialectical, analysis and synthesis, structural-functional, formal-legal, formal-logical, comparative-legal, etc. Along with the analysis of the legislative categories "typical case" and "exemplary case", the features of such cases, a thorough description of the procedure for consideration of exemplary cases within the special administrative proceedings. The following stages of exemplary proceedings are distinguished as: submission of the case as exemplary; opening proceedings in a exemplary case and publication of a relevant announcement; consideration of the case and adoption of a exemplary decision; review of a exemplary decision. It is argued that the Supreme Court's decision in an exemplary case is the primary goal of ensuring predictability, consistency and uniformity of judicial enforcement in disputes of the same type. In addition, the need to distinguish between the legal opinions of the Supreme Court, formulated in the exemplary decisions and the legal opinions of the Supreme Court, formulated in the decisions on the results of cassation review of court cases, as having a different nature. Special attention is paid to the discussion of the possibility of implementing the institution of exemplary cases in other procedural orders, in particular, civil and economic proceedings. Based on the results of the research, the opinion is supported that despite the existing skepticism among scientists and the fundamental differences in the mechanism of legal regulation of public and private relations, the specificity of some types of private relations, which are characterized by mass, and disputes within the boundaries of which become the subject of judicial proceedings, allows to single out specific typological features of the relevant cases, and therefore, there is a possibility of their exemplary consideration according to the rules of civil procedure. This primarily concerns disputes in the field of consumer protection and tort disputes. In the aspect of the latter, as one of the catalysts for the introduction of the institute under study in civil proceedings, it may be necessary to address the issue of operational protection of civil rights of victims of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine.