“Almanac of Law”

Almanac of law. Issue 15 (2024), pages 328–339.

DOI: 10.33663/2524-017X-2024-15-328-339

Lvova O. L.
Legal certainty as a value component of quality lawmaking

The article provides a theoretical, practical and legal analysis of the content of legal certainty as a value component of quality lawmaking.

The author focuses on the substantive characterization of the quality of legislation, which is evidenced by clear legal certainty, scientific validity, and comprehensibility of the texts of legal provisions, as well as by the predictable, foreseeable result of their observance and application in the process of law implementation. It is also emphasized that on the way to European integration, Ukraine is implementing European legal norms, in the process of which models of legal relations not always typical for our country and Ukrainian national identity are borrowed, and concepts and terms of not clearly defined content are introduced into the legal field, which prevents their correct understanding and unambiguous interpretation and leads to legal conflicts.

In its decisions, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has repeatedly emphasized legal certainty as a component of the rule of law, which implies an unambiguous understanding of a legal provision, otherwise it inevitably leads to arbitrariness. The author also emphasizes such characteristics of a legal act as accessibility and predictability, which will enable a person to regulate his or her behavior and foresee the consequences of such behavior.

Given the practical and applied aspect of the issue under study, the author states that there is a globalizing trend towards the replacement of traditional concepts in society and scientific doctrine, for example, with regard to the family, when its natural concept, which exists in Ukraine and is fundamental at the constitutional and international legal levels, is transformed from the «basic natural unit of society» to a «social construct».

It is the inconsistency of the content of legal norms with public expectations and needs, their unclear legal certainty and unpredictability that leads to the adoption of poor quality and ineffective legal acts, which can lead to human rights violations. In particular, in the area of discrimination, there is a competition of human rights, which is caused by artificially created conflicts between fundamental legal acts and newly adopted ones.

As a conclusion, the author proposes to characterize legal certainty as a component of the rule of law principle, which implies an unambiguous understanding and interpretation of the content of a legal provision, its scientific validity, accessibility, and clarity of the purpose pursued by the lawmaker and the intended result.

Key words: rule of law, morality, human rights, lawmaking, law, legal certainty, predictability.

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Olena Leonidivna Lvova,
Senior Researcher, Department of Theory of State and Law, Institute of State and Law named after V. M. Koretsky, NAS of Ukraine,
Candidate of Law,
Senior Researcher
ORCID: 0000-0003-2985-9671