The article examines the peculiarities of the constitutional regulation of judges’ indemnity in Ukraine. It has been proven that it has a constitutional legal nature, and its foundations are fixed at the level of the Basic Law of Ukraine in accordance with the concepts of independence of the judiciary and the inviolability of judges. It was determined that one of the key approaches in the comprehensive understanding of the essence of judicial indemnity is the clarification of its features from the perspective of the analysis of the constitutional model of such indemnity, which consists of a set of constitutional norms, the connections between them, as well as the interpretations of these norms by the body of the constitutional judiciary and the ECHR. It has been found that it is one of the key elements of the constitutional status of professional judges in Ukraine, regardless of instance and specialization; derives from the principle of independence of judges and aims to protect judges from any form of intimidation, obstruction, harassment or improper interference in the performance of their professional functions; it acts as an integral element of the constitutional regulation of the judicial status, one of the system of guarantees for ensuring the independence of the judge; it is characterized by the presence of a special subject; indemnity is systematically related to the legal responsibility of judges, namely, it provides for exceptions to its application; the conditions, methods, and forms of applying the judge’s indemnity must be fixed exclusively in the law; it has a clearly expressed functional character – it is related to the professional activity of a judge and operates within clearly defined time frames – within the framework of the judicial process, and not outside it; the indemnity is lifelong, that is, it is unlimited in time; it does not have an absolute character; exclusion from the sphere of legal responsibility refers to clearly defined actions of the judge. It has been found that by providing appropriate frameworks for judicial indemnity and applying them proportionately, the judiciary demonstrates and confirms its independence and accountability. The limits of a judge’s indemnity are subject to the discretion of the state authority, which decides on the essence, direction and scope of this indemnity, its relationship with other elements of the judge’s immunity (judge’s procedural immunity). At the same time, they cannot be too broad and such as to raise doubts about the purposeful direction of the functioning of judges’ indemnity, must not distort or distort its legal nature and cause impunity for judges for committed offenses. At the same time, in the course of law enforcement, the limits of a judge’s indemnity must be assessed in each specific case, where the legal purpose of the indemnity, its target orientation, the justification of the indemnity to ensure the independence and impartiality of judges, the weighing of the indemnity against public interests, as well as the systematic interpretation of the relevant constitutional norms are subject to consideration. regulate the basic principles of judges’ indemnity. An unjustified narrowing of the judicial indemnity may negatively affect the independence of the court and the judiciary.

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Theses

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Conference papers

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Websites

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