The present state formation in Ukraine is accompanied by the dynamic process of reforming the legal system towards the decentralization of power, by the gradual renewal of the institutional design of the constitutional mechanism of public authority, by highlighting municipal authority as a separate type of public authority. This process is accompanied by the reception of certain ideas, concepts, doctrines, institutions, and norms by Ukrainian municipal law. Researching on the problem of reception by Ukrainian municipal law is urgent today and requires to doctrinally define and develop a whole new concept of state formation.

    The aim of the article is to study the essence and content of reception as a general theoretical and municipal legal phenomenon and to determine the doctrinal definition of reception in municipal law through distinguishing its characteristics taking into account the features of the municipal law field and its prognostic trends.

       It is stated that modern doctrinal approaches to the concept of reception suggest considering it in four digits: first, as the perception of norms (provisions) of states having been existed by any national legal system; secondly, as a process of technical adoption of norms, textually repeating the norms of international law, by public authorities; thirdly, as the imposition (coercion) to adopt a norm by any state to another one with some political pressure; fourthly, as voluntary borrowing norms of a particular state in the event of a gap in the legal regulation of a range of social relations.

       It is substantiated that the mechanism of municipal legal reception begins with the perception of the doctrinal idea and ends with the adoption and effective functioning of a municipal norm or institution.

      In the process of composing a doctrinal definition and developing a systematic idea of the essence of reception in municipal law, it is suggested to distinguish a number of characteristics, such as: 1) it is a municipal legal phenomenon and a global process of the interaction between states; 2) in the process of reception, international norms can also be perceived; 3) it may be unilateral, taking place at the initiative of only the recipient country or the donor country, and in some cases it may bilateral (at the initiative of both countries) or multilateral (in the process of adopting international norms); 4) it has a cross-temporal nature, manifested in the perception, implementation and adoption of foreign legal material, having been created nowadays or in the past; 5) it has a deliberate and volitional nature, i.e. the mechanism of implementation has to take place at the initiative of public authorities on the basis of normative consolidation; 6) its aim is to promote the development and modernization of municipal law, although it can have both constructive and destructive legal consequences.

     As a result of the study, it is proposed to understand “reception in municipal law” as a municipal legal phenomenon and a process of legal interaction between states, which has a cross-temporal nature and consists in the ability or necessity of perceiving, implementing and adopting foreign municipal legal ideas, doctrines, concepts, norms, institutions (or international norms) by a national legal system in order to modernize and develop the system of local self-government.

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Theses

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29. Mutana A, ‘Vzayemodiya konstytutsiynoho ta mizhnarodnoho prava v umovakh hlobalizatsiyi’ (dys kand yuryd nauk, 2015) (in Ukrainian).