Since a new legal act – Ukraine’s Code on Bankruptcy Procedures was adopted, which replaced the former Law of Ukraine on Restoring a Debtor’s Solvency or Recognizing It Bankrupt, the national insolvency law has been changed, which consequently has had a beneficial impact on the insolvency legal field development. Unquestionably, permanent reformation of national insolvency legislation seeks to bring advantages into the insolvency regulation system and may well lead to its improvement. Nevertheless, judicial statistics reveals that number of insolvency and bankruptcy cases, particularly on the stage of cassation, remains critical and does not decrease despite the new rules that regulate judicial procedures. Such figures signify the existence of certain legal gaps and lack of completeness and certainty of legal norms, which violates the principle of quality of law and hinder the appropriate conditions for the effective implementation of rights and obligations of participants in insolvency and bankruptcy cases and, as a result, negatively affect the market’s functioning and economic relations.

This article focuses on the analysis of the cognizance of judicial procedures by the national legislation, judicial practice and insolvency law doctrine in order to reconsider theoretical and practical approaches for better understanding of the essence of judicial procedures in insolvency and bankruptcy cases.

The purpose of this article is to outline the essence of judicial procedure within the insolvency law and suggest an illustrative definition in order to use it appropriately in practice.

 Methodologically the interpretation of judicial procedures within the insolvency and bankruptcy law are based on the variety of scientific approaches. Primarily, when the corresponding norms are adopted, the lexical and semantic meaning of the established terms should be given a proper weight to use a clear, relevant and consequential terminology. This will help avoid ambiguity of the rules and clarify the predictability of actions of the respective procedure participants. Besides, while explicating the substance of judicial procedures that are put into practice within the insolvency proceedings it is important to proceed from the aim of the respective judicial procedure, which is the quintessence for the proper settlement of insolvency disputes and for the achievement of the necessary outcomes for all participants involved. Moreover, the given analogy brings to light the difference between the definition of the judicial procedure made by national courts and the various other definitionsadopted by national lawmakers, which clearly confirms many distinguishing features of interpretation in both occasions.

 It is proved that judicial procedures within the insolvency jurisdiction differ from other types of procedures (exercised under the control of the court) by its partly substantive legal nature. In terms of substantive law, judicial procedures include the necessary scope of rights and obligations that can be fulfilled by procedure participants involved in order to achieve legally determined aim of the respective procedure.

The comprehensive analysis shows that national courts tend to misuse the category “judicial procedure” (“sudova protsedura”) within the corresponding jurisdictions making a substitution of the proper categories that are to apply in accordance with either their legal jurisdictions (i. e. “protsedura sudovoho rozhlyadu”) or the international legal acts, inter alia European Convention on Human Rights (i. e. “trial”). The article contends that despite the category “judicial procedure” (“sudova protsedura”) is defined in certain legal acts and actively used in judicial practice, it is crucial to apply the right terminology when the decision is made by national courts. Accordingly, the category “judicial procedure” (“sudova procedura”) should be adopted within the economic (commercial, corporate, company) law jurisdiction. Particularly, it should be stated in the Ukraine’s Code on Bankruptcy Procedures and the Economic Code of Ukraine as it already is while other legal acts should avoid this term or provide a proper definition of its meaning. Otherwise, this can lead to the misinterpretations or misreading of the given terms within legal norms by their recipients, will overload the e-justice system and (is) will not comply with the principles of the quality of law and legal certainty. It is also argued that judicial procedures within the insolvency law should be classified in compliance with the appropriate aim of the corresponding procedure.

The conducted legal analysis of theoretical developments, judicial practice and legal regulations in the field of judicial procedures against juridical persons (debtors) once again confirms that there is an urgent need for further improvement of both understanding of the essence of judicial procedures, their purpose and consequences through the rules of legal language, and the quality of legal norms adhering strictly to the principles of law and lawmaking.

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