The article points out that despite the legal properties of the Supreme Court of Ukraine’s opinions on the application of legal norms, as legal means that interpret the provisions of legal acts in generally mandatory manner, which is consistent with the most progressive international standards, Ukrainian legislation and legal informational infrastructure do not provide the same degree of accessibility of these legal opinions as of statutory instruments. As a result, in order to form a comprehensive and correct understanding of the actual legal regulation of certain social relations, their participants face the urgent need to perform complex search and analytical operations to identify legal opinions applicable in their circumstances. Moreover, it is of utmost importance to ensure the validity of these legal opinions, as the law allows the Supreme Court to overrule itself without sufficiently clear indication of each such case.

The author argues that for the most convenient use of these mandatory legal opinions, believing in terms of their accessibility, given their place in the legal system they should not be inferior to laws and regulations, as well as to minimize complications for legal regulation and law-application caused by overruling by the Supreme Court its legal opinions, it is to be recognized as urgent to introduce such legislative and technical solutions in the field of support of justice by means of informational technology and informing society aboutlaw, as: 1) representing laws and regulations on official governmental electronic resources accompanied by references to relevant legal opinions of the Supreme Court; 2) marking in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions of Ukraine the overruled legal opinions of the Supreme Court as no longer binding. In addition, it is noted that other ways to ensure further sustainable functioning and development of the justice system through validation of legal opinions are placing judges-reporters of the Supreme Court under obligation in relevant cases, if judgment is not delivered in its entirety, to send the administrator of the Unified State Register of Judgments a notice of the need to publish information about the new legal standpoint of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, as well as to present a new legal opinion for its immediate publication. Moreover, the author acknowledges as a positive step to establish in the law that controversial issues regarding the relevance of legal opinions (whether there is an overruling a particular legal opinion in a judgment, if it was not indicated, but there are grounds for reasonable doubt) should be resolved by a judgereporter of the Supreme Court in a case in which a later ruling was rendered.

Bibliography

Journal articles

1. Szabados T ‘Precedents in EU law – The problem of overruling’ (2015) 1 Elte Law Journal 125–45 (in English).

Theses

2. ReshotaV, ‘Application of Sources of Administrative Law in the Judicial Procedure of Ukraine’ (Doctor of Law thesis, Lviv Polytechnic National University) (in Ukrainian).

Newspaper articles

3. Kiranpreet Kaur, ‘India: Judicial Precedents in India’ (Mondaq, 10.02.2020) <https:// www.mondaq.com/india/trials-appeals-compensation/882616/judicial-precedents-inindia> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in English).

4. Bernaziuk Ya, ‘Spivvidnoshennia neobkhidnosti zabezpechennia yednosti sudovoi praktyky ta vidstupu vid pravovykh pozytsii Verkhovnoho Sudu (na prykladi publichno-pravovykh sporiv)’ (Sudebno-iurydycheskaia hazeta, 26.08.2020) <https://sud. ua/ru/news/blog/177404-spivvidnoshennya-neobkhidnosti-zabezpechennya-yednostisudovoyipraktiki-ta-vidstupu-vid-pravovikh-pozitsiy-verkhovnogo-sudu-na-prikladivirishennyapublichno-pravovikh-sporiv> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in Ukrainian).

5. Kibenko O, ‘Novi pidkhody Velykoi Palaty Verkhovnoho Sudu do zabezpechennia yednosti sudovoi praktyky’ (Sudebno-iurydycheskaia hazeta, 23.11.2018) <https:// sud.ua/ru/news/blog/129294-novi-pidkhodi-velikoyi-palati-verkhovnogo-sudu-dozabezpechennyayednosti-sudovoyi-praktiki> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in Ukrainian).

6. Shumylo M, ‘Pravovi vysnovky kasatsiinoho sudu: inter praeteritum et futurum’ (Sudebno-iurydycheskaia hazeta, 07.12.2020) <https://sud.ua/ru/news/blog/187091pravovi-visnovki-kasatsiynogo-sudu-inter-praeteritum-et-futurum> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in Ukrainian).

7. Zuievych L, ‘IeDRSR – dzherelo (dez)informatsii’ (Zakon i biznes, 15.02.2019) <https:// zib.com.ua/ua/print/136357.html> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in Ukrainian).

Websites

8. ‘Table of the Supreme Court of the United States Decisions Overruled by Subsequent Decisions’ (Constitution Annotated, 30.04.2022). <https://constitution.congress.gov/ resources/decisions-overruled> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in English).

9. Colneric Ninon, ‘Guiding by Cases in a Legal System Without Binding Precedent: The German Example’ (Stanford Law School. China Guiding Cases Project, 19.06.2016) <https://cgc.law.stanford.edu/commentaries/7-judge-colneric> (accessed: 30.04.2022) (in English).