The article focuses on the analysis of such concepts as legal and judicial doctrines, their main features and the differentiation of these doctrines. Despite a wide range of research centered on the legal doctrine, it should be noted that in legal literature the topic of the judicial doctrine and its specific features still remains unexplored.

The purpose of the article is to analyze and streamline the existing doctrinal studies conducted by scholars, to highlight the universality and the differences of both doctrines in practice where disputes are considered in court, and to express the author’s own vision of the possibility and the need of studying the judicial doctrine and its components.

It is established that it is possible to apply some universal provisions to such a specific and complex branch of law as tax law. This ensues from the fact that resolution of tax disputes in court always rests upon one of the fundamental principles of law, namely, the rule of law. This is explained by its absolute universality, since it is taken as the basis throughout domestic legislation and has a fairly ramified meaning. This principle ensures the balance on the part of the State’s power and on the part of the parties to the dispute regarding their mutual rights and obligations.

 Besides, the judicial doctrine has such a special characteristic as descriptive and normative nature. This provision means that if there are certain discrepancies and conflicts in legislation and legal relations concerned, a judge seeks to apply a legal provision which matches an existing problem to the highest extent possible. In the absence of an identical provision or a provision most consistent with the situation, it is presumed that a judge may change a legal provision with the aim of resolving the problem. It should be noted that application of the principle of fairness in the judicial doctrine is not the same as its application in the legal doctrine, since plaintiff’s and defendant’s interests in tax conflicts are diametrically opposite. In such conditions, it is mandatory to coordinate one’s own behavior at the personal level to ensure that other participants are able to exercise their rights, and to take into account and balance own rights and obligations with the obligations and rights of persons who are opposed in disputed relations at the intersubjective level.

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Vasilev A, Pravovaya doktrina: voprosy teorii i istorii [Legal Doctrine: Theory and History] (Yurlitinform 2009) (in Russian).

Edited books

2. Petryshyn O (red), Pravova doktryna Ukrainy: Zahalnoteoretychna ta istorychna yurysprudentsiia [Legal Doctrine of Ukraine: General Theoretical and Historical Jurisprudence], t 1 (Pravo 2013) (in Ukrainian).

3. Semenikhin I ta Petryshyn O (red), Pravova doktryna: zahalnoteoretychnyi analiz [Legal Doctrine: General Theoretical Analysis] (Yurait 2012) (in Ukrainian).

Journal articles

4. Bulygin E, ‘Aleksi mezhdu pozitivizmom i nepozitivizmom’ [‘Alexi Between Positivism and Non-Positivism’] (2011) 1 Pravo Ukrainy 59 (in Russian).

5. Maksymov S, ‘Pravova doktryna: filosofsko-pravovyi pidkhid’ [‘Legal Doctrine: Philosophical and Legal Approach’] (2013) 9 Pravo Ukrainy 34 (in Ukrainian).