THE RULE OF LAW AS A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF LAW: DOCTRINAL APPROACHES AND MEASUREMENT CRITERIA IN THE CONTEXT OF UKRAINE’S ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to disclose the substance of the rule of law as a fundamental principle of law and to substantiate a system of criteria that makes it possible to measure the level of its practical implementation in the sphere of Ukraine’s state anti-corruption policy under martial law and in the course of fulfilling the obligations of a candidate state for accession to the European Union.

The methodological basis of the study comprises a combination of general scientific and special legal methods of cognition. The dialectical method was used to reveal the evolution of doctrinal approaches to understanding the principle under study; the formal legal method was applied to analyse its normative consolidation in the Constitution of Ukraine and in anti-corruption legislation; the systemic and structural method served to construct the author’s system of assessment indicators; and the comparative legal method was employed to compare national approaches with the standards of the Venice Commission. Content analysis was applied to programme documents, namely the Rule of Law Checklist, the Roadmap on the Rule of Law and the Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021–2025. The empirical component of the study consists in the operationalisation of the identified indicators through a system of verifiable measures with the sources of their verification specified.

Contemporary doctrinal approaches have been analysed, and it has been established that most scholars associate the principle under study with the protection of human rights, the limitation of arbitrariness on the part of public authorities, the affirmation of legality and legal certainty, and the effectiveness of state institutions. It has been proven that the practical significance of this principle lies not only in its normative consolidation but also in the possibility of using it as a yardstick for the quality of state policy in the field of preventing and combating corruption. The author proposes a system of eight indicators: legality, legal certainty, the prohibition of arbitrariness, equality before the law, the independence of specialised bodies, the transparency of their activities, accountability, and the guarantee of human rights and freedoms. Each indicator has been operationalised through specific measures, and the sources of their verification have been identified, which makes the proposed system suitable for practical application.

It has been substantiated that the proposed system makes it possible to carry out a comprehensive assessment not only of the regulatory and legal framework but also of the quality of functioning of specialised anti-corruption bodies, the level of their openness and independence, and the compliance of their activities with European standards. It is precisely the comprehensive attainment of the identified indicators that testifies to the real rather than declarative affirmation of the principle under study in Ukraine. A promising direction for further research is the theoretical and legal understanding of corruption as a systemic threat to the affirmation of this principle.