POWERS OF CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF UKRAINE TO INTERPRET LAWS: PROS AND CONS ARGUMENTS

Abstract

Provisions of current constitutional legislation are analyzed in part of powers of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to interpret laws. Arguments in support of preservation of existing power of a body of the constitutional control to interpret laws that is determined by a status law of Ukraine “On Constitutional Court of Ukraine” and counterarguments on the issue are suggested. Most strong are the following arguments justifying the necessity of official interpretation of laws exactly by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine: 1) qualifying requirements to the candidates to a position of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are considerably higher than those that are put forward to other professional judges. Particularly part 4 of Article 148 of the Fundamental Law of the Ukrainian State makes provisions that a citizen of Ukraine having at least a 15-years professional experience in the sphere of law and is a lawyer with an admitted level of his/her competence can be a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. 2) although the existing law does not contain an imperative requirement to a candidate to have a scientific degree, as existing realities vouch, the majority of judges of the previous and the present panel of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are doctors and candidates in law and thereafterfore possess a scientific level of legal awareness; 3) accumulated by them (by judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine) considerable experience of law interpretational activities basing on knowledge of rules and techniques of find-ing out of ultimate content of laws and also skills and abilities of preparation of acts of official interpretation of laws. This practical experience is positively marked on the efficiency of legal activities related to interpretation of laws. The following arguments vouch for loss of the powers to interpret laws by the Constitu-tional Court of Ukraine: 1) fist, within a law-based state bodies of state power and their officers and officials act in accordance with the specially allowed principle: “it is allowed to do only that that is stipulated by law” (part 2 of Article 6 and part 2 of Article 19 of the Constitution of Ukraine); 2) secondly, the existing hierarchical juridical collision relating to the powers of the Con-stitutional Court of Ukraine as to the official interpretation of laws in case of absence of a colli-sion norm is solved in the following manner: the priority (preference) within the mechanism of the constitutional and law regulation of social relations with the participation of the Constitution-al Court of Ukraine is given to the norm of the Fundamental Law of our state. Evaluation of arguments in support of preservation of the existing power of the body of constitutional control to interpret laws and also counterarguments concerning this issue vouch for the necessity of solving it on the legislative level by way of whether bringing the status law of Ukraine “On Constitutional Court of Ukraine” according to the prescript of part 2 of Article 150 of the Constitution of Ukraine or the attachment 3 of part 1 of Article 85 of the Fundamental Law of the Ukrainian State to the provision about the official interpretation of laws by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”.