The article examines the doctrine of municipal law as a field of law. Various approaches and aspects of understanding municipal law in terms of theoretical and methodological understanding of the doctrine of municipalism, municipal human rights and municipal government are considered. The question is posed due to the fact that the question of the subject and legal method of municipal law, its position and role in the legal system, legal nature, principles, functions are among the most controversial in modern jurisprudence.

The aim of the study is to extend the doctrinal basis of municipal law as a separate branch of law.

The most productive results and the best conclusions about the problems of municipal law in the general theory of law and municipal law science can be obtained only by using a comprehensive conceptual-municipal approach, considering, for example, the formation and development of municipal law in the evolutionary process of local government and municipality. With such a methodological approach, the phenomenon of municipal law must be considered not only in the context of its conceptual and normative-legal model, but also as a manifestation of objective reality, which has not only normative and functional-teleological characteristics as part of national legislation, but also axiological, epistemological, ontological, civilizational, institutional, subject-object, constitutive, historical, categorical, ideological, economic, mental parameters, which have evolved under the influence of relevant ideas and principles.

It is argued that municipal law as a branch of law is a product of the theory of municipalism and centuries-old practice of local self-government, the result of the development of its concepts and models under the influence of principles and keyideas of democracy, rule of law and human rights. This is a peculiar and unique legal model of the state of evolvement of local self-government in a particular country or the world. Therefore, municipal law should be considered not only from the standpoint of recognition of local self-government by the state, but also in synergy with the development of municipal legal awareness and municipal culture, the implementation of municipal human rights, cultivation of belonging to the territorial community, in the general context of constitutionalism etc.

In this context, it is argued that municipal law is inherent exclusively to the constitutional state, which not only recognizes, proclaims, but also actually operates the principles of rule of law, anthropocentrism, separation of powers, subsidiarity and decentralization, and so on.

It concludes about the nature of municipal law as a separate branch of law, evidence of which is its own subject of legal regulation, peculiar legal structures and categories, a peculiar structure of norms and institutions, a combination of different legal methods.

That is, it is a set of internal factors. External system-forming factors that provide municipal law with the status of a separate branch of law, including features of sociopolitical development, constitutional transformations and economic reforms, the influence of natural law, national, historical, spiritual, cultural and other traditions, reception of international standards, and so on are also considered.

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Bondar’ N, Grazhdanin i publichnaja vlast’: konstitucionnoe obespechenie prav i svobod v mestnom samoupravlenii: uchebnoe posobie (Gorodec 2004) (in Russian).

2. Tihonov V, Manifest federalizma, ili put’ k demokraticheskomu gosudarstvu (Lugansk 2004) (in Russian).

Journal articles

3. Dickovick J T, ‘Centralism and “decentralization” in unitary states: a comparative analysis of Рeru and Senegal’ [2003] 14 (1) Journal of Public and International Affairs 40–63 (in English).

4. Medvedchuk V, ‘Derzhavotvorchyi potentsial federatyvnoi transformatsii Ukrainy: konstytutsiino-pravovi aspekty’ (2013) 2 Visnyk Natsionalnoi akademii pravovykh nauk Ukrainy 98–107 (in Ukrainian).

5. Medvedchuk V, ‘Doktrynalna model pobudovy federatyvnoi derzhavy: ukrainska retrospektyva i suchasnist’ (2013) 9 Pravo Ukrainy 289–305 (in Ukrainian).

 6. Yavir V, ‘Federalizm yak tekhnolohiia separatyzmu v Ukraini’ (2015) 14 Viche 18–21 (in Ukrainian).