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Article Court Opinion on Contradiction of a Law to the Constitution: Risks in the Procedure of Appeal to the Supreme Court
Authors
IRYNA BERESTOVA

   

Name of magazine Legal journal «Law of Ukraine» (Ukrainian version)
Issue 10 / 2018
Pages 198 - 210
Annotation

The key point of the second stage of the Ukrainian judicial and constitutional reform may be seen as the adoption of the long-awaited amendments to the procedural legislation (particularly, to the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine, the Code of Economic Procedure of Ukraine, and the Code of Administrative Court Procedure of Ukraine) which have entered into force on December 15, 2017, the starting date of operation of the Supreme Court. The said amendments also affected the procedure according to which the courts of the judicial system may apply to the Supreme Court in case they come to the opinion on the unconstitutionality of the laws which should be applied to contested relations. The article studies which opportunities are available to a person (via the interdisciplinary, systemic and modeling methods) for protecting of an infringed constitutional right due to the presence of certain provisions of laws with the contents which are regarded by this person as inconsistent with the Constitution of Ukraine, as early as at the stage of court protection subject to civil jurisdiction. The purpose of the article is to study the advantages and risks of the procedure according to which a court being a part of the judicial system may apply to the Supreme Court following the opinion of the court handling the case on the unconstitutionality of the law which should be applied to the contested relations. The author provides rationale for the actual introduction of the presumption of non-legal law, emphasizes the risk of a diminished direct action of the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine, and also the leveling of the constitutional principle of the rule of law and the binding nature of the passed court decision, and also the disturbed balance of separation of powers. The author formulates a conclusion that the normative entrenchment of further direct procedural actions which a court should follow if it intends to apply to the Plenum of the Supreme Court with the aim of making a submission to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) on the unconstitutionality of the law which falls under the CCU jurisdiction, are essentially unacceptable and undermine the independence of the decision passed by the court and will further lead to a re-assessment of this decision on the merits by way out of the established procedure (in the quasi-procedural manner). This opinion is based on the fact that the Plenum of the Supreme Court is not a judicial body which reviews a case on the merits according to the established procedure. It is stated that a court which is a part of the judicial system of the lowest level acts as an improper subject to form an opinion on the unconstitutionality of a law, but not on the doubts about it, and indicates this in a particular court decision on the merits of a civil dispute before the constitutional proceedings are opened in this case. 

Keywords unconstitutionality of law; by way out of the established procedure; nonlegal law; the Constitutional Court of Ukraine; the Supreme Court, the Plenum of the Supreme Court
References

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