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The article examines the specifics of judicial discretion in the administrative-jurisdictional process based on a complex systematic analysis from the standpoint of the modern understanding of administrative law with the use of general scientific and special methods of learning legal phenomena. Current administrative legislation distinguishes the administrative process in the resolution of administrative disputes, in proceedings in cases of administrative offenses and disciplinary proceedings, in the implementation of positive administrative procedures of a permit, registration and other nature. The administrative-jurisdictional process considered in a broad and narrow sense. Administrative-jurisdictional activity is social relations regulated by the norms of administrative-procedural law that arise within the scope of resolving a legal dispute (conflict) during the consideration of a case on an administrative offense, disputes of a public legal nature between individuals and legal entities and public authorities regarding the consideration citizens’ complaints, disciplinary proceedings, proceedings in connection with the application of measures of administrative coercion, in particular administrative warning and administrative termination. With regard to proceedings in the administrative-jurisdictional process, judicial discretion is the right and duty of the judge to freely choose one of several decisions regarding a specific case enshrined in the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine, the Economic Procedural Code of Ukraine, the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, based on worldview, professional experience and conviction, which is carried out in a procedural form for the benefit of the person, society and the state. In administrative-jurisdictional proceedings, discretion is exercised based on material norms, which act as a means of forming the legal basis for the actual occurrence of judicial discretion; consolidation of judicial discretion in normative acts; direct exercise of judicial discretion; implemented through procedural norms aimed at identifying the relationship protected by administrative and legal norms., У статті на підставі комплексного системного аналізу з позиції сучасного розуміння адміністративного права із застосуванням загальнонаукових та спеціальних методів пізнання юридичних явищ розглянуто специфіку судового розсуду в адміністративно-юрисдикційному процесі. Чинне адміністративне законодавство виділяє адміністративний процес при вирішенні адміністративних спорів, при провадженні у справах про адміністративні правопорушення та дисциплінарних провадженнях, при реалізації позитивних адміністративних процедур дозвільного, реєстраційного та іншого характеру. Адміністративно-юрисдикційний процес розглянуто у широкому та вузькому сенсі. Адміністративно-юрисдикційна діяльність – це урегульовані нормами адміністративно-процесуального права суспільні відносини, що виникають у межах розв’язання правового спору (конфлікту) під час розгляду справи про адміністративне правопорушення, спорів публічно правового характеру між фізичними та юридичними особами та органами публічної влади щодо розгляду скарг громадян, дисциплінарні провадження, провадження у зв’язку із застосуванням заходів адміністративного примусу, зокрема адміністративного попередження й адміністративного припинення. Стосовно провадження в адміністративно-юрисдикційному процесі, суддівський розсуд – це надані судді законодавством право та обов’язок свободи вибору одного з кількох закріплених у нормах КУпАП, Господарського процесуального кодексу України, КАС України рішень щодо конкретної справи, заснований на світогляді, професійному досвіді та переконанні, що здійснюється у процесуальній формі на користь особи, суспільства та держави. У адміністративно-юрисдикційному провадженні розсуд здійснюється на основі матеріальних норм, що виступають засобом формування юридичної основи фактичного виникнення суддівського розсуду; закріплення суддівського розсуду у нормативних актах; безпосередньої реалізації суддівського розсуду; реалізується через процесуальні норми, спрямовані на виявлення відносин, які охороняються адміністративно-правовими нормами.

In its modern form, textualism promised careful attention to interpretive context. Such attention would allow textualism to be less ‘wooden’ than its earlier manifestations and so to avoid the embarrassing ‘contradictions’ of the sort highlighted by Karl Llewellyn’s table of ‘dueling’ interpretive canons. Avoiding that sort of embarrassment, though, required that textualists be more modest about the determinacy of statutory meaning. To make their method of interpretation less wooden, after all, was to make it more nuanced and, accordingly, to make it more vulnerable to reasonable disagreement about its application in individual cases. To back away from the ‘foolish pretense’ of statutory determinacy was awkward in a legal environment disfavoring the open exercise of judicial discretion, and all the more so for proponents of an interpretive methodology grounded so explicitly in a commitment to democratic self-rule. To the extent that it did, modern textualism was able to incorporate a more Realist understanding of legal determinacy because it also contained a (concededly modest) commitment to judicial non-intervention. That commitment is, however, now mostly gone. Seemingly motivated by a desire to accumulate power to a now firmly conservative judiciary, a combination of interpretive methodological conversions and new judicial appointments has yielded a federal judiciary committed not only to textualism but also to deciding the cases before them on the basis of 'independent' judicial judgment. And because the legal environment continues to disfavor the open exercise of judicial discretion -- and understandably so, given judges’ comparative lack of democratic legitimacy -- the result has been increasingly wooden analysis, giving new and unfortunate relevance to Llewellyn’s near-century old critique.

The doctrine of the burden of proof must face, as the pole of its argument, its connection with the Constitution and that it must assume that the doctrine of onus probandi projects a formulation that goes beyond its strict procedural conceptualization of the "ordinary" to access the sphere of constitutional guarantee, because a jurisdictional declaration of right cannot be refused when a party's burden of proof is aided by both the preemption of defenselessness and the right to use appropriate means of proof to substantiate - prove - its claim. It must be declared essential that recognition of the constitutional right to the burden of proof is correlated with the constitutional right to effective judicial protection. The Constitution, in addition, places this recognition in the procedural part without the possibility to recognize the relative recognition of the constitutional right as the burden of proof in the judge and which can justify the ex officio evidence of the part of the judge (in part). In the European model, the constitutional right to the burden of proof is correlated with the constitutional right to effective judicial protection, which is not characterized by its uncertainty or casuism - that is, when the burden of proof should apply in a civil process - but, on the contrary, by the constitutional recognition of a specific and specific constitutional right and the guarantee provided by the Constitution. Without constitutional recognition of the right to the burden of proof, it would be impossible to achieve effective judicial protection, since the use of "evidence for their protection" is essential for the party to have access to it - to effective judicial protection. Burden of proof rules have adouble dimension. On the one hand, they affect the parties because they indicate the need to prove their claims and the scope of the right to prove what they have in the process. On the other hand, they are the only way out of the crossroads in which the court may find itself when it doubts the authenticity of the facts proved, either because they have not been proved, or because the evidence was insufficient or unsatisfactory. This decision consists in ruling against the party who has failed to prove the facts in question, constituting a factual presumption of the supremacy of the law sought to be enforced., Доктрина про тягар доказування повинна зіткнутися, як полюс своєї аргументації, зі своїм зв'язком зі Конституцією і що вона повинна припустити, що доктрина onus probandi проектує формулювання, яке виходитьза рамкиїї суворої процесуальної концептуалізації “звичайного” для доступу до сфери конституційного гарантізму, оскільки в юрисдикційному проголошенні права не може бути відмовлено,колитягарю доведення сторони сприяє як претеріація беззахисності, так і право використовувати відповідні засоби доказування для обґрунтування - доведення - свого позову. Необхідно проголоситисуттєвим, що визнання конституційного права тягарем доказуваннякорелюєз конституційним правом на ефективний судовий захист. Конституція, крім того,ставить цевизнання в процесуальну частину без можливості визнати співвідносне визнання конституційного права тягарем доказування у судді і яке може виправдати ex officio докази частини (частково) судді. В європейській моделі конституційне право на тягар доказування співвідноситься з конституційним правом на ефективний судовий захист, яке не характеризується його невизначеністю або казуїзмом - тобто про те, коли тягар доказування повинен діяти в цивільному процесі-, але, навпаки, конституційного визнання конкретного і конкретного конституційного права і гарантії, передбаченої Конституцією. Без конституційного визнання права на тягар доказування домогтися ефективного судового захисту було б неможливо, оскільки використання “засобів доказування для їх захисту”має істотне значеннядля того, щоб сторона мала до нього доступ - до ефективного судового захисту. Правила тягаря доведення маютьподвійний вимір. З одного боку, вони впливають на сторони, оскільки вказують на необхідність доведення своїх тверджень і обсяг права на доведення того, що вони маютьвпроцесі. З іншого боку, вони є єдиним виходом з роздоріжжя, в якому суд може опинитися, колисумніваєтьсяв достовірності доведених фактів, або тому, що вони не були доведені, або тому, що докази були недостатніми або незадовільними. Це рішення полягає в ухваленні рішення проти партії, яка не довела сумнівних фактів, що становлять фактичне припущення про верховенство права, застосування якого вона прагне.

The article is devoted to research of fundamental principles of the court case management, it’s entity and place in the civil justice principle system, interrelations with other principles of civil justice, as well as specific of implementation during the course of individual procedural procedures in civil proceedings. The article considers doctrinal scientific approaches regarding the legal nature of principles of the court case management, as well as certain aspects of principle of the court case management understanding as one of the fundamental principles associated with the effectiveness of justice through compliance with standards of civil proceedings, developed for the European Union countries. In the context of conducted research about legal nature understanding of court’s procedural activity during civil proceedings in the doctrine of civil procedural law regarding to assigning ability of attributing it to an independent principle of civil proceedings, the statement was defined: the principle of judicial leadership is a separate functional principle of civil proceedings, which is integrated with the norms of procedural law and in connection with other general principles, such as the principles of access to justice, the rule of law, as well as the sectoral principles of civil proceedings - adversarial, dispositivity, proportionality; their implementation with the goal of discretionary powers by the court within separate differentiated procedural procedures and, at the same time, in combination with other principles, to fulfill the goal of civil justice. To substantiate the above, the norms of the civil procedural legislation of Ukraine were analysed, in which the principle of judicial leadership finds its direct and indirect embodiment. On the basic of theoretical research and national civil procedural legislation review, the scientific position regarding nature of principle of the court case management have been formulated by a following feature extraction. It has been determined that the principle of the court case management is characterised by the following features: 1) it’s in a inextricable interconnection with other principles of civil proceedings, such as proportionality, dispositiveness, adversarial; 2)it’s used as a implementation of principles of civil justice during the execution judicial discretion within the limits of certain differentiated procedural procedures; 3) regarding to functional principles of civil proceedings it reflects legislation realisation as the norm of direct regulatory action by defining the role of the court as civil procedural legal relations member during the civil proceedings - a combination of powers and procedural actions of the chairman in the court session and indirect realisation through the prism of combination with other principles of civil justice. According to the results of the conducted research, respective conclusions have been formulated., Стаття присвячена дослідженню принципу судового керівництва, його сутності та місця у системі принципів цивільного судочинства, взаємозв’язку з іншими принципами цивільного судочинства, а також особливостей його реалізації при здійсненні окремих процесуальних процедур у цивільному судочинстві. У статті розглядаються доктринальні наукові підходи щодо юридичної природи принципу судового керівництва, а також окремі аспекти розуміння принципу судового керівництва як одного із принципів, пов’язаних із забезпеченням ефективності правосуддя, у межах дотримання мінімальних стандартів цивільного процесу, розроблених для країн Європейського Союзу. У площині дослідження розуміння юридичної природи процесуальної активності суду при здійсненні цивільного судочинства у доктрині цивільного процесуального права щодо можливості віднесення її до самостійного принципу цивільного судочинства, вироблено твердження, що принцип судового керівництва є окремим функціональним принципом цивільного судочинства, який інтегрований у нормах процесуального права, знаходиться у нерозривному взаємозв’язку із іншими, як загальновизнаними принципами, зокрема принципами доступності до правосуддя, верховенства права, так і галузевими принципами цивільного судочинства – змагальності сторін, диспозитивності, пропорційності у цивільному судочинстві, слугує їх реалізації при здійсненні судом дискреційних повноважень у межах окремих диференційованих процесуальних процедур і, одночасно, у поєднанні з іншими принципами, – виконанню завдання цивільного судочинства. В обґрунтування зазначеного проаналізовано норми цивільного процесуального законодавства України, у яких принцип судового керівництва знаходить своє пряме та опосередковане втілення. На підставі теоретичних наукових доробок та аналізу вітчизняного цивільного процесуального законодавства сформовано наукову позицію щодо сутності принципу судового керівництва шляхом виокремлення його характерних ознак. Визначено, що принцип судового керівництва характеризується такими ознаками: 1) знаходиться у нерозривному взаємозв’язку із іншими принципами цивільного судочинства, зокрема принципами пропорційності, диспозитивності, змагальності; 2) слугує реалізації таких принципів цивільного судочинства при здійсненні судом дискреційних повноважень у межах окремих диференційованих процесуальних процедур; 3) у якості функціонального принципу цивільного судочинства знаходить своє правозастосовне втілення як норма прямої регулятивної дії шляхом визначення ролі суду як учасника цивільних процесуальних правовідносин при здійсненні правосуддя у цивільних справах – сукупності повноважень та процесуальних дій головуючого у судовому засіданні та опосередковане втілення через призму поєднання із іншими принципами цивільного судочинства. За результатами проведеного дослідження вироблено висновки.

In the field of law, evidence does not always need to reveal objective truth or relate to any reality. On the other hand, no matter what the system of evidence is, it must be established in accordance with predetermined conditions, and only by observing those conditions does the evidence derive its force. With the transition from this system of regulated evidence to a system of freedom of evidence, truth no longer excludes evidence. On the contrary, proof becomes a way of establishing the truth. The judge, who has become the central actor in the evaluation of the evidence, must rely solely on his discretion. The work Bentham published towards the end of his life, in 1827, The Reasoning of Legal Evidence, which the author wrote on the question of proof in law, having specific properties not equivalent to those found in mathematics or physics; sciences that allow Bentham to find terms of comparison to explain the functioning of language in jurisprudence. Acquaintance with evidence involves drawing conclusions, that is, drawing conclusions from one or more available evidence. Inferences are central to the reasoning people make with evidence, whether in a judicial setting - which will occupy our reflections in this text - or in any other evidentiary context. By virtue of their statutory powers, judges have to decide whether there is sufficient evidence in favor of this or that fact and consider it proven. In addition, they impose the conclusion of their evidentiary considerations: just as judges establish, according to Kelsen, the authentic interpretation of norms for a specific case, they impose their decision on the existence of a proven fact. But in no way does this mean that judges engage in mental operations of a different nature than those carried out by the parties, their lawyers or any other person – including researchers – having access to the proceedings. In a court hearing, several pieces of evidence can contribute to proving the same proposition of fact. Such a situation, which is very common, adds to the complexity of the analysis of inferences in evidentiary considerations. The latter are then evaluated not only with reference to individual evidence, but also in relation to other evidence., У сфері права докази не завжди потребують розкриття об’єктивної істини або відношення до будь-якої дійсності. З іншого боку, якою б не була система доказів, вона повинна бути встановлена відповідно до заздалегідь визначених умов і тільки з дотримання тих умов докази виводять свою силу.З переходом від цієї системи регульованих доказів до системи свободи доказів істина більше не виключає доказів. Навпаки, доказ стає способом встановлення істини. Суддя, який став центральною дійовою особою в оцінці доказів, повинен покладатися виключно на свій розсуд. Робота«Обґрунтування судових доказів», яку Бентам опублікував наприкінці свого життя, в 1827 році, яку автор написав з питання про доведення в законі, що має специфічні властивості, які не еквівалентні тим, що зустрічаються в математиці або фізиці, що дозволяють Бентаму знайти терміни порівняння для пояснення функціонування мови в юриспруденції. Ознайомлення з доказами передбачає робити висновки, тобто робити висновки з одного або декількох наявних доказів. Висновки є центральним елементом у міркуваннях, зроблених особами з доказами, чи то в судових рамках - які займуть наші роздуми в цьому тексті - чи в будь-якому іншому доказовому контексті. Судді мають в силу своїх статутних повноваження вирішувати питання про наявність достатніх доказів на користь того чи іншого факту і вважати його доведеним. ри цьому вони нав'язують висновок своїх доказових міркувань: так само, як судді встановлюють, на думку Кельзена, автентичне тлумачення норм для конкретної справи, вони нав'язують своє рішення існуванню доведеного факту. Але в жодному разі це не означає, що судді беруть участь у розумових операціяхіншого характеру, ніжті, що здійснюються сторонами, їхніми адвокатами або будь-якою іншою особою – включаючи дослідників – маючи доступ до матеріалів провадження. У судовому засіданні кілька доказів можуть сприяти доведенню однієї і тієї ж пропозиції факту. Така ситуація, яка є дуже поширеною, додає складності аналізу умовиводів в доказових міркуваннях. Останні потім оцінюються не тільки посиланням на окремі докази, а й по відношенню до інших доказів.

The subject. The article considers the role of the Plenum of Russian Supreme in forming judicial practice on the example of giving qualification to the crimes committed against sexual freedom and inviolability, as well as against property and public health.The objective of the article is to conduct a complex analysis of the function of the decisions, taken by the Plenum of Russian Supreme Court, in the formation of a unified vector of judicial practice. The authors dare to refute the hypothesis hat judicial practice can be recognized as a source of law.The methodological basis of the research is the dialectical theory of development and interrelation of phenomena. Historical, formal-logical, systematic methods of knowledge have been identified as relevant to the topic of the study.The main results, scope of application. The authors draw attention to the problem of evaluative features used in the process of law enforcement when interpreting the norms of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. A norm with such signs acquires an unformalized essence from the point of view of the boundaries of criminalization of a particular phenomenon. On the other hand, the nature of crimes is so diverse that without the flexibility of criminal law regulation (allowing the use of evaluative features), the application of the norm taking into account specific circumstances in a particular case may not be possible. The authors also consider issues related to the characteristics of the objective side, the end time of these crimes, the application of the formula of a single ongoing crime and its separation from related compounds. The process of law enforcement is based on such guidelines as the norms of law, judicial discretion, established judicial practice, the position of the Plenum of Russian Supreme Court. Attributing an explanatory role to the decisions of the Plenum of Russian Supreme Court does not completely eliminate the shortcomings inherent in legal technology. Correcting the current situation with the help of judicial discretion is not always justified, since this is possible only if there is a legitimate alternative. Assigning the status of a precedent to a judicial decision may lead to the substitution of the law by decisions taken in a particular case.Conclusions. The judicial practice concerning these issues is completely different. Despite the existence of similar situations, courts, as a rule, qualify an offense using various norms of the law, which negatively affects compliance with the principle of legality. The issue related to the function of the decisions of the Plenum of Russian Supreme Court in the formation of a single vector of judicial practice has been and remains debatable. The continued addition of new articles to criminal legislation, on the one hand, indicates the desire of the legislator to bring it to perfection, but, on the other hand, forms a mechanism for clarifying the rules of its application, which sometimes leads to their contradictory interpretation. At the same time, crime and punishment should be determined only by legislation.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the arguments of foreign jurists about the nature and advantages of inclusive legal positivism as a legal theory that justifies the existence of moral foundations of the legal system. Examples from judicial practice are considered, as well as key theoretical approaches that reveal the necessary and sufficient features of inclusive legal positivism, as well as its subject specifics and basic provisions on the relationship between law and morality. The paper is prepared within the framework of the HSE research project «Applied Ethics».

Interpretation, or the judicial understanding of the legal acts in the process of protection of the human rights, is becoming increasingly interesting and controversial, both from an aspect of the applied interpretation technique (which interpretation method is applied by the judge in a specific case and why), as well as from an aspect of the legal opportunism/legitimacy of the interpretation. It is a fact that so far, neither the European, nor the national legal theories and practice have offered coordinated systematic approach regarding the application of the legal interpretation methods, which often leads to different interpretation of the legal norms by the national and the European courts when applied in similar or identical legal situations for protection of the human rights. It is considered that the different interpretation of the legal documents by the judges endangers the protection of the human rights, but also the legal security of the citizens. Judicial discretion in choosing an interpretive method in a particular case by the national, or by the courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg further complicates the already complex procedure of protection of human rights, which directly creates new problems instead of solving the existing ones. The "pluralistic interpretive box" is continuously filled with new and new cases from different approaches by different courts in the process of protection of human rights, which leads to increased scientific interest for a more detailed consideration of this issue. The growing scientific interest in the impact of the legal interpretation on the (non) equality of the human rights protection is the main reason for writing this paper, in which I will try to explain the connection between the three different, but still related issues encountered in the multilevel system of human rights protection in Europe. The first issue addressed in the paper concerns the most common methods of legal interpretation applied in the national and European court proceedings. The second issue concerns the search for a consistent answer to whether and how much legitimacy and legality the court decisions made by applying judicial discretion have when the interpretive method in judicial decision-making is chosen, and the third issue refers to finding an answer to the impact of such court decisions on the functionality and efficiency of the multi-level system of protection of human rights, that is, to what extent such court decisions have a positive or negative effect on the human rights protection. Given that each national court has its own instruments and techniques of interpretation by which the judges make their decisions, the need to study their causality and effectiveness is more than evident.

Continuing to vest the judiciary with very wide discretion to determine maintenance issues on a case-by-case basis, the child maintenance system applied in Ireland is now an outlier in the common law world. However, while there are currently few judicially-developed or legislatively-established principles or guidelines to direct the exercise of this discretion – much less any formulae or tables – reform may be on the horizon. With this in mind, this article considers the legal framework for child maintenance in Ireland before drawing on recent empirical studies to highlight the challenges in practice. It places the spotlight on the mounting calls for the adoption of a more predictable and consistent formula-based approach to the quantification of child maintenance and investigates five key issues which would have to be addressed in devising any such reform.

The article is devoted to the issue of the concept and content of judicial discretion in administrative proceedings. The article examines theoretical approaches to the definition of the concept of judicial discretion, highlights the peculiarities of procedural legislation and judicial practice, which provide for the limits and criteria of judicial discretion. It is concluded that judicial discretion in administrative proceedings allows, despite its ambiguous understanding and interpretation, to single out certain features of this phenomenon. The exercise of discretionary powers by the administrative court determines the formation of judicial practice in the consideration and resolution of certain categories of administrative cases, as a result of which complex and ambiguous public legal disputes are resolved immediately, without waiting for the improvement of legal regulations. The article draws attention to the fact that administrative courts are called upon to resolve public-law disputes, to promote the restoration of violated rights, freedoms and interests in the field of public-law relations, to restore law and order in the public sphere. Therefore, any administrative decision regarding a person made by a subject of authority, regardless of the method of adoption, level and place of the body in the relevant system, legal grounds, motives, method and forms of adoption, is subject to judicial control. Attention is drawn to the fact that exercising judicial discretion, the judge, guided by the principles of the rule of law, can depart from purely normative and legal regulation and decide the case on the basis of the principles of law. It is proposed that judicial discretion should be understood as the authority of the court in choosing decision options, governed by the rules of the Civil Court of Ukraine, guided by the rule of law and the circumstances of the case in order to render a legal and justified decision in the case. At the same time, judicial discretion gives the court the right to choose, while the court must make a decision, which should be based on the principles of administrative justice as much as possible and correspond to the individual features of a specific administrative case. It is justified that further scientific research of judicial discretion will make it possible to improve the state of administrative proceedings, to provide practical recommendations to courts, aimed at improving the latter's exercise of discretionary powers., Стаття присвячена висвітленню питання щодо щодо поняття та змісту судової дискреції в адміністративному судочинстві. У статті розглянуто теоретичні підходи щодо визначення поняття судової дискреції, висвітлено особливості процесуального законодавства та судової практики, які передбачають межі та критерії судової дискреції. Робиться висновок, що судова дискреція в адміністративному судочинстві дозволяє, попре її неоднозначне розуміння та тлумачення, виокремити певні риси цього явища. Здійснення адміністративним судом дискреційних повноважень обумовлює формування судової практики з розгляду та вирішення окремих категорій адміністративних справ, в наслідок чого складні та неоднозначні публічно-правові спори вирішуються безвідкладно, не чекаючи удосконалення нормативно-правового регулювання. У статті звертається увага на те, що адміністративні суди покликані розв’язувати публічно-правові спори, сприяти поновленню порушених прав, свобод та інтересів у сфері публічно-правових відносин, відновлювати правопорядок у публічній сфері. Тому, будь яке управлінське рішення стосовно особи ухвалене суб'єктом владних повноважень незалежно від способу прийняття, рівня і місця органу у відповідній системі, правових підстав, мотивів, способу та форм ухвалення підлягає судовому контролю. Звертається увага на те, що реалізуючи судову дискрецію, суддя керуючись принципами верховенства права, може відступити від суто нормативно-правового регулювання і вирішити справу на основі принципів права. Запропоновано, під судовою дискрецією слід розуміти врегульовані нормами КАС України повноваження суду у виборі варіантів рішення, керуючись верховенством права і обставинами справи з метою винесення законного та обґрунтованого рішення у справі. При чому, судова дискреція ставить перед судом право вибору, при цьому суд має прийняти рішення, яке максимально повинно ґрунтуватися на принципах адміністративного судочинства та відповідати індивідуальним особливостям конкретної адміністративної справи. Обгрунтовується, що подальше наукове дослідження судової дискреції надасть змогу покращити стан адміністративного судочинства, надати практичні рекомендації судам, спрямовані на вдосконалення реалізації останніми дискреційних повноважень.

Keywords: civil procedural protection, court effective way of protection, civilprocess The article is devoted to the study of Civil Procedureaspects of the court's application of a proper and effective method of protecting aviolated right within the frame of its own judicial discretion. Attention is paid to thestudy of the legal nature of civil protection, existing doctrinal positions, as well as thelegal and regulatory environment. The features of the exercise of discretionary powersby the court regarding the use of an effective method of protecting violated privatelaw have been established. It is indicated that the court is empowered to choose an effectivemethod of legal protection exclusively within the limits of the statement ofclaim — claims are detailed. It is emphasized that when choosing an effective methodof protection, the principle of the rule of law must be observed, in accordance with theprovisions of Article 10 of the Civil Procedural Code of Ukraine (“CPCU”). This meansthat an effective method of legal protection must be correlated with the provisions ofthe Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and thecase law of the European Court of Human Rights. This universal provision applies toall cases of claim proceedings, namely the claim, which are decided by the rules ofcivil procedure. The peculiarity of the court's use of an effective method of protectionin civil cases is that it can choose an effective method of legal protection only in courtcases in which the claim is considered, as well as when the law or agreements do notdetermine the effective method of legal protection. On the basis of the conducted scientificresearch, the author has developed own gradation of legal criteria of choice bycourt of an effective way of legal protection at consideration of civil cases. Such a gradationis universal for all cases considered by the court under the rules of civil procedure.Exceptions to the above regarding the application of a specific method of protectionare cases related to compensation for damage caused to an individual as a resultof withdrawal of an insolvent bank from the market or liquidation of the bank.

Data de publicació electrònica: 11 d'octubre de 2022 Overrepresentation of foreigners in prisons is a well-established fact in Spain. However, there is a lack of empirical studies exploring the causes of this overrepresentation. Based on focal concerns theory, this paper aims to explore one of the possible causes of this overrepresentation: sentencing disparities between Spanish and foreign citizens. For this purpose, two subsets of court records are used to study disparities in the odds of incarceration (n = 2310) and differences in the length of prison sentence (n = 1162). Due to alleged limitations of standard regression models to analyse disparities in sentencing when differences between groups are large, entropy re-weighting was used to achieve balance between group observations with regard to control variables. The analyses reveal, on the one hand that, even when controlling for relevant legal and other extra-legal factors, citizens from Africa have higher odds than Spanish citizens to be sentenced to prison. On the other hand, no differences in the length of the conviction have been found. Research funding provided thanks to Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Ref: PGC2018-099155-B-I00). Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature.

Mandatory minimums limit judicial discretion in many jurisdictions in the United States, often compelling judges to impose harsh incarcerative terms. Using qualitative interviews with 41 criminal term judges presiding in a state in the United States, we explore how mandatory minimums influence the judicial sentencing function. We find that judges vary in their approaches to sentencing and that their approaches correspond with their perceptions of mandatory minimum statutes. While our respondents consider case-level, systemic, and pragmatic factors, the majority of judges are focused on the case level and perceive that mandatory minimums often strip away the flexibility they need to craft appropriate sentences in individual cases, leading to punishments that are unduly harsh, and sometimes preventing the imposition of promising alternatives to incarceration. Some judges experience moral dilemmas and guilt feelings during this process. In contrast, judges who highlight pragmatic factors (e.g., public perceptions) are more receptive to statutory restrictions.

El cuestionamiento de la subjetividad del agente legal que, ejecutando sus labores y basada en discrecionalidad judicial imprime aspectos particulares como emociones, propios de la esencia humana en la sentencia, es el tema central de este artículo. Con la implementación de nuevos actores como jueces digitales, estos aspectos adquieren un papel relevante por quien ahora se encarga de deliberar. El objetivo del artículo es evaluar el papel de la subjetividad, inicialmente desde el rol de jueces y/o juezas, para luego involucrar programadores y programadoras de inteligencia artificial que asisten tareas en la toma de decisiones judiciales. ¿Qué pasa con la subjetividad que ya no impregna directamente el encargado de juzgar? En otras palabras, la empatía que genera en la actualidad el agente judicial encuentra nuevos aliados con quienes trabajan mancomunadamente. El análisis está basado en artículos que profundizan temas como decisiones judiciales, emociones e inteligencia artificial. Temáticas trabajadas desde conocedores de ciencias como derecho y tecnología que unifican esfuerzos para dar origen a conocimiento superior artificial. Al procesar grandes volúmenes de información emanan una sentencia, que en vector doctrinal anhela mantener certeza jurídica y cumplir con buenas prácticas que ocasionen en la sociedad aceptación y legitimidad

O objetivo da pesquisa é investigar a utilização dogmática do direito fundamental à liberdade religiosa como legitimador do discurso de ódio contra as minorias sexuais. A escolha do tema se justifica em razão da relevância teórica, prática e atualidade do debate, haja vista que o direito à diferença, como corolário da igualdade, dignidade humana e não-discriminação devem ser os referenciais hermenêuticos de interpretação e aplicabilidade dos direitos fundamentais no Estado Democrático de Direito. Absolutizar o exercício da liberdade religiosa, utilizando-a como meio de reprodução do discurso de ódio contra minorias sexuais, constitui uma forma de utilização da ciência do direito para segregar, excluir e marginalizar pessoas que não aderem aos padrões binários de uma heteronormatividade compulsória. Por meio da pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, além das análises temáticas, teóricas, interpretativas, críticas e comparativas, foi possível demonstrar e concluir que a decisão judicial brasileira que proibiu a apresentação de peça de teatro em que uma mulher trans protagoniza a pessoa de Jesus Cristo, assim como a decisão da Suprema Corte dos EUA, que legitimou o direito de um homem confeiteiro se recusar a fazer um bolo de casamento para um casal gay, por razões religiosas, deixam claro o protagonismo e a discricionariedade judicial, visto que tais decisões pautam-se em razões metajurídicas e solipsistas para robustecer a reprodução estrutural do discurso de ódio contra as minorias sexuais.

Neste ensaio serão analisados criticamente os julgamentos da Ação Direta de Inconstitucionalidade por Omissão 26 e do Mandado de Injunção 4733, proferidos pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal, que tornaram crime a homofobia. O julgamento do caso pode ser analisado sob a perspectiva do que se convencionou denominar de ativismo judicial, um comportamento característico (mas não exclusivo) de Cortes Constitucionais, e da judicialização da política, fenômeno presente em diversas democracias contemporâneas, que desloca para o Poder Judiciário o centro de gravidade das decisões políticas fundamentais, a partir da constatação de um comportamento omissivo do Poder Legislativo e do Poder Judiciário. Para além disso, a discussão envolve a discricionariedade judicial na interpretação da norma, tema remete a um dos debates acadêmicos mais famosos da teoria geral do direito contemporânea, travado entre Herbert Hart e Ronald Dworkin. Pretende-se demonstrar que o caminho adotado pela Suprema Corte extrapolou os limites da atuação jurisdicional, vulnerando o equilíbrio entre o Poder Judiciário e o Poder Legislativo e ferindo o texto expresso da Constituição Federal.

Studies on sentencing in England and Wales are dominated by normative studies prescribing how judges should sentence. Few examine how judges actually sentence. This article provides an insight into the empirical reality of judges’ sentencing practices by examining how judges use counter to frame their judgement of offenders and their behaviour in six sentencing remarks. The six sentencing remarks were selected to ensure that variations in sentencing decisions of the six cases were, at least to a large extent, subject to judicial discretion. It finds that the statutory point exercises a binding effect on judicial sentencing despite judges having the discretion to disregard the starting point. The finding leads to the further inference that judges might possibly perceive the Court of Appeal and the public as two important audiences for their sentencing remarks.

The paper examines the ways and principles of interpretation of the contract. The purpose of the study is to build an algorithm for interpreting unclear terms of the contract, which can be used in court while resolving civil disputes. The research methods are: formal-legal, analysis and synthesis, generalization, comparative-legal.The article reveals the use of three main ways of interpretation by Russian and foreign courts: textual, systematic, volitional, and additional - the interpretation of “contra proferentem”. These methods of interpretation in Russian law are enshrined in Article 431 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and in the practice of higher judicial bodies. It is revealed that the activity of the court in clarifying the meaning of unclear contractual terms is amenable to algorithmization. The algorithm of contract interpretation can be presented as follows: the first stage is the application of textual interpretation, the second stage is the application of systematic interpretation, the third stage is the application of volitional interpretation, and finally, the fourth stage is the interpretation of “contra proferentem”. At the same time, the court must interpret the terms of the contract in their relationship with the general principles of civil law, as well as proceed from the reasonableness and good faith of the parties of the contract.The short conclusions, formulated in the research: 1) while interpreting the terms of a contract, it is necessary to proceed from the balance of textual and volitional interpretation; 2) it is inadmissible to substitute the freedom of contract for judicial discretion; 3) the interpretation «сontra proferentem» is a way to make the principle of the equality of parties real, but not formal; 4) the list of interpretation methods, fixed in CC of RF and formulated in practice of higher judicial bodies, should be regarded as a flexible algorithm of intellectual activities of the court on clarifying the meaning of unclear terms of a contract.

The article examines the issue of limiting judicial discretion in the framing of sanctions of criminal law norms. The approaches to its solution available in the criminal law doctrine are analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that the establishment of optimal limits of judicial discretion is one of the main tasks of the legislator and a necessary condition for the effective application of criminal law

Murder is an offence that is regarded as atrocious across all civilisations. It is for this reason that some countries, including Botswana, still retain the death penalty for the offence of murder. In April 2018, the parliament of Botswana amended Section 203 (2) of the Penal Code to introduce a minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years imprisonment for murder with extenuating circumstances. This development was applauded in some quarters as an indication that parliament was getting tougher on murder and had delimited the discretion of the judiciary to impose lenient sentences. This paper evaluates the necessity and desirability of the minimum mandatory sentence within the premise of judicial discretion in sentencing. A pre-amendment assessment of the sentencing patterns of the courts of Botswana, in relation to murder with extenuating circumstances, is undertaken with a view of determining whether there was either inexcusable leniency or flagrant disparities. The paper contends that the courts were already effectively self-regulating in their sentencing for murder with extenuating circumstances, and that an intrusive legislative intervention by way of the minimum mandatory sentence was unnecessary. It is maintained that this erosion of judicial discretion is likely to result in injustices in instances where the particular circumstances of a case would have otherwise justified a sentence of less than 15 years imprisonment.

Judicial discretion at the statement of the party about falsity of the proof is considered as the problem creating obstacles to achievement of objectives of legal proceedings in civil process. Ways of its resolution are offered: establishing in the legislation or Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme court of the court’s obligation to appoint an examination or offer the parties to submit other evidence when a party claims that the evidence is false, only if the suspected evidence confirms or refutes a fact that is relevant to the case, but in fact at the time of filing such an application there is no evidence directly confirming or refuting this fact; establishing liability in the form of a fine on the party that did not substantiate the statement of fraud; addition of the article of the civil procedure code of the Russian Federation on the statement of falsification of evidence, the rule on sending information about it to law enforcement agencies in necessary cases, when establishing the falsification of evidence; revision for newly discovered circumstances when providing new evidence, when evidence showing a lie appeared after the decision entered into legal force (through implementation by official interpretation).

We’re here to remind us who we are. Today one of the few subjects on which we all seem to agree is the need for justice and peace. But why our agreement for justice and peace leads to war and injustice? Maybe, our agreement is only seeming. Now we ask ourselves: maybe that war that we are experiencing now is because we have not listened to, we have not tasted, isn’t it?We refer to quantum physics to answer the question. The quantum physics has been arrived by thinking and experimenting to revolutioning knowledges, which determine our world, also if only few have understood these theories in their real sense. We follow the question, whether and how far a consciousness trained by quantum physics can reach more directly to the understanding of questions of life and peaceful questions than a thinking, which is obliged to classical legal education. It deals especially with fundamental existential questions: the theme of personal responsibility, the value of the individual existence, the evaluation of the personal I-you relation. The connections of natural sciences and peace, ecology, and sociological change have always driven us. How can we speech about that, which science cannot comprehend? What means self, identity, responsibility, peace for the lawyer and the quantum physicist? We offer you an exciting meeting.The paper is written with special attitude to Lautsi case, to the 2022 French presidential election.

This article presents data from questions about sex offender registration orders in a large national survey on Australian public opinion about adult sex offenders. It outlines the legislative frameworks that govern these registers in Australia and discusses the use of public registers, the research on the effectiveness of sex offender registers, and Australian attitudes to such registers. Our surveys of three cohorts of members of the Australian public reveal strong public support for sex offender registers, especially for cases involving child victims. However, there was also support for judicial discretion in the imposition of orders and reduced support for automatic registration where a non-custodial sentence is imposed. The Australian Government has recently announced the establishment of a national public sex offender register, but our findings show limited support for this approach. The implications for policy and practice are considered. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of legal effectiveness in the context of the goals and purpose of law in general and separately in the private law relations. Since the law is a complex social phenomenon, the author paid special attention to the issues of refraction of normative tasks through the prism of judicial discretion. Law enforcement practice, on the one hand, shows the viability of a particular norm and its compliance with the current level of development of civil society, however, it can also distort the spirit of the law, which will not allow achieving the necessary legal result. Judicial discretion regarding the interpretation of certain legal elements and in assessing the behavior of participants in legal relations can lead to the transformation of legal relations, which does not allow to realize the goals set by the subjects. It is noted that the regulation of the limits of judicial discretion would help to ensure effective legal regulation. Assessing the behavior of participants due to the lack of mechanisms for proving the actual intentions of the parties is difficult for most countries of the continental legal system; therefore, a formal approach prevails and qualifies the will of the parties recorded exclusively in writing.

The author analyzes the application of the principle of good faith by courts when considering disputes as a rule of law The article concludes that since good faith is an evaluative concept, there are no criteria for it in the law, when applying the principle of good faith by courts, it is necessary to specify and clarify the criteria of good faith for the consideration of specifi c disputes. Courts form rules, in some cases different from the rules established by the law, after which they are widely applied as rules of law. The paper concludes that the recognition of the possibility of applying the principles of law as norms of law determines the appearance of the law- making role of courts. The article concludes that liability under article 10 of the civil code for violation of the principle of good faith also indicates the possibility of applying the principle of good faith as a rule of law.

This, the second part of an article on public policy in contracts between family members, focuses on legality in antenuptial contracts, particularly those which exclude all forms of sharing between spouses. The Matrimonial Property Act 88 of 1984 is now 35 years old and, apart from writing, it neither requires formalities to ensure that prospective spouses who enter into antenuptial contracts fully appreciate the consequences of their agreements, nor does it guarantee that the agreed upon property system is fair to both spouses. Instead, the focus is upon protecting the interests of third parties and creditors. The common-law principle of immutability makes it very onerous for parties to change the matrimonial property consequences during their marriage and, because the judicial discretion to order redistribution of benefits at divorce is limited to marriages concluded before the implementation of the Matrimonial Property Act, enforcement of antenuptial contracts at the termination of the marriage can lead to grossly unfair results. This unfairness has implications for gender equality, both because of gendered disparities in bargaining power at the conclusion of antenuptial contracts and legislation which limits the courts’ ability to deviate from contracts which mostly favour men, while retaining a discretion to deviate from contracts which tend to favour women. This article argues that the second leg of the public policy test, as articulated by the Constitutional Court in Barkhuizen v Napier can remedy the inadequacies in the statutory and common law by allowing the courts to consider inequalities in bargaining power and unfairness at the time of the enforcement of antenuptial contracts, in effect overriding the principle of immutability and creating a residual judicial discretion not to enforce an antenuptial contract.

The main purpose of the study is to obtain a set of new knowledge about the forms of activity of the court to establish the circumstances necessary for making a decision in pre-trial proceedings. Within the framework of this goal, the following tasks were solved: the study of legal provisions regulating the form of judicial cognition, including the receipt of information by the court, their sources, as well as the forms of use by the court of the acquired knowledge when making a procedural decision in pre-trial proceedings, the powers of the court, the rights of the parties to the court session; analysis and generalization of scientific material; development of ways to solve the existing problems in the use of information by the court that does not have a procedural form of evidence; development of proposals for improving legislative regulation and recommendations for the application of the current criminal procedure legislation in ambiguous procedural situations. The basis for the study was the hypothesis proposed by the author about the possibility and necessity of adapting the criminal procedure form of judicial activity to solve the problems of pre-trial proceedings. The research methodology is based on traditional general and particular scientific methods, the combination of which allowed us to gain new knowledge about the content of the criminal procedure form of judicial activity, its characteristic features, to consider the reasons for the emergence of applied problems of making procedural court decisions, the so-called judicial "copy-paste", etc., to draw scientifically significant conclusions. The results of the study were: the author's formulations of the concepts of "adaptability of the criminal procedure form", "personification of the criminal procedure form"; the revealed and confirmed regularity of the connection between the criminal procedure form and the validity of judicial procedural decisions; the inexpediency of presenting the same requirements to court decisions taken in pre-trial proceedings as to the court verdict; the direct connection between the problem of the validity of a court decision and the copying of the texts of indictment documents into the content of court decisions ("copy-paste") is established; the author's proposals for solving the identified problems are formulated. The following main conclusions are made: 1) the solution of many problems of judicial activity in pre-trial proceedings is possible on the condition of adaptation and personalization of its (activity) procedural form and the introduction of appropriate procedural features; 2) the lack of legislative regulation of the basic rules of the procedural form of evidentiary activity does not allow the court to make decisions that fully meet the requirements of the criminal procedure law; 3) in order to solve the problems of the validity of a court decision, the following general rule is proposed: the court is obliged to take all necessary measures to establish all the circumstances essential for the given case by means available at the court session. At the same time, the methods must have legal regulations.

The aim of the article is to study a phenomenon that is undergoing evolutionary changes in the theory of administrative process, namely, the subject of administrative procedural legal relations based on the concepts of the general theory of law about the subject of legal relations, taking into account the peculiarities of the sectoral orientation of the norms of administrative procedural and substantive administrative law. Accordingly, the tasks of the work are: determination of the nature of the obligatory and optional subject of the administrative procedural legal relationship; the relationship between the subject of the administrative procedural relationship and the administrative legal relationship The goals and objectives of the study determined the research methodology, which is based on general philosophical heuristic methods, as well as the method of comparative analysis, system-structural method. The principal result of this article is the idea that the understanding of the subject of an administrative procedural legal relationship correlates with the concept of the subject of an administrative legal relationship and, accordingly, administrative legal personality is a condition for the presence of an administrative procedural legal personality. However, administrative procedural capacity as an element of legal personality depends not only on age and legal limiting factors, but also on procedural acts of jurisdictional bodies, which, in cases established by law, can endow a person with administrative procedural capacity within the framework of judicial discretion. At the same time, the synthetic definition of the subject of the administrative procedural relationship entails the heterogeneity of the subject composition of the administrative procedural relationship. In this regard, the logic of the analysis of the declared phenomena presupposes their comparison with similar structural elements of other types of procedural legal relations and a new look at the theory of the subject of procedural legal relations in the general theoretical sense.

Considering the possibility of using artificial intelligence in resolving legal disputes is becoming increasingly popular. The authors examine whether soft ware analysis can be applied to resolve a specific issue in investment disputes - to determine the applicable law to the substance of the dispute and highlight the application of artificial intelligence in the area of law, especially in predicting the outcome of a dispute. The starting point is a sample of 50 arbitral awards and the results of previously conducted research. It has been confirmed that soft ware analysis can be useful in decision-making processes, but not to the extent that arbitrators could exclusively rely on it. On the other hand, the development of an algorithm that would predict applicable law for different legal issues required a much larger sample. We also believe that the existence of different legal and factual circumstances in each case, as well as the personality of the arbitrator and arbitral/judicial discretion are limitations of the application of artificial intelligence in this area.

The paper deals with the history of the institution of bankruptcy of citizens in the Russian legislation, substantiates its socio-rehabilitative nature. The author analyzes the grounds of application of the legal institute of refusal to discharge of obligations upon completion of bankruptcy proceedings. The paper describes the legal grounds for refusal of discharging of obligations, related to both the wrongful actions of the citizen prior to initiation of bankruptcy proceedings and to actions, committed in the course of bankruptcy proceedings. The main reason for the refusal to discharge obligations is the concealment of necessary information by the debtor or submission of knowingly unreliable information. At the same time, the author concludes that in each case there is the need to identify features of abuse of the right (bad faith) on behalf of the debtor. The author also expresses an opinion concerning the abstract nature of such categories as abuse of the right and good faith that depends on the court's evaluation of the specific circumstances of the case and judicial discretion.

This article is devoted simultaneously to several problems of civil law: abuse of right, judicial discretion, legal strength and certainty, each of them deserves separate research attention. At the same time, the author considers them together, since the concept of abuse of right is evaluative, and, as it is known, such concepts always pose a danger to legal certainty, since they do not contain all the features of the phenomena described by them, so their application is possible only within the framework of broad judicial discretion. And here one of the most difficult questions of jurisprudence appears: what are the limits of such discretion, the decision of which largely depends on the correctness of the courts’ qualification of the subject’s actions as malicious law enforcement. At first glance, it turns out to be a vicious circle! However, the author comes to an unexpected conclusion that the activity of the Supreme court of the Russian Federation, whose decisions often play the role of judicial precedents, regulates the process of applying the rules on abuse of right and thereby provides legal certainty.

En este trabajo se analiza el posible significado y plausibilidad de dos conocidas tesis de la teoría jurídica: la exclusividad y la exhaustividad del derecho. Conforme a la primera, las normas positivas agotan el contenido del derecho, mientras que la segunda expresa que los ordenamientos jurídicos siempre suministran una respuesta apta para justificar una decisión judicial. El marco teórico escogido es el enfoque del positivismo jurídico contemporáneo y, se muestra que, en gran medida, el alcance de las tesis acerca de la exclusividad y la exhaustividad depende de una distinción entre el «sistema global», que es el conjunto de normas válidas en un cierto momento T (i.e., el momento de la decisión judicial que resuelve una controversia) y el sistema de normas aplicables. A su vez, esa distinción permite analizar la naturaleza abierta de los sistemas globales desde cuatro puntos de vista diferentes: regulativo, lógico, normativo e interpretativo. Finalmente, se exploran las consecuencias de estas distinciones para el problema de la discrecionalidad judicial.

After decades of Bureau of Prisons’ maladministration of the sentence reduction authority authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 3582, Congress passed the First STEP Act of 2018 with the intention of expanding the use and transparency of compassionate release. Although the COVID-19 pandemic was not among the considerations when the First Step Act became law, it contains several important modifications that may protect thousands of federal prisoners from severe sickness and premature death while in custody. First, its procedural modification allowing federal prisoners to circumvent the often-artificial strictures of the Bureau of Prisons allows for a timely and proactive release decision from the sentencing court before a vulnerable individual is stricken with the deadly virus. Second, district courts are now permitted to grant release decisions to deserving individuals who were previously blocked from petitioning their sentencing court by the Bureau of Prisons. Importantly, courts are empowered to find grounds for release beyond those specifically enumerated in the now-outdated Sentencing Commission policy statement that formerly restricted compassionate release decisions. After observing the potential of the new compassionate release process as modified by the First Step Act, Congress should avoid concurrent systems of release and judicial discretion over early release should be expanded by statute or via an updated Sentencing Commission policy statement.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the types of interpretative reasoning determining the content of extra-legal criteria contained in general reference clauses. This construction, despite its normative foundation, detaches itself from the intention of the legislator much more than e.g. the principles of law, at the same time extending deliberately judicial discretion. Extra-legal values, identified by courts as to their type and their content, then confronted with internal legal axiology and concretized with respect to the facts of the case, are the most crucial part of reasoning that affects the process, results and roles of particular rules of judicial interpretation. It reduces the role of language and systemic rules, connecting the effect of determining the content of extra-legal values primarily with the type of political system and the related scope of judicial autonomy. The different impact between democratic and authoritarian regimes on judicial reasoning is confirmed by the analyzed examples of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Polish courts deciding in the period before and after 1989.

Analyzing sentencing disparity calls for more calibrated measures to capture the nuances of judicial discretion within jurisdictions that adopt strict sentencing guidelines. This article uses an unconventional outcome variable, percent deviation, to investigate guideline digressions in a nested, multilevel model. Percent deviation is calculated based on the difference between the guidelines’ “arithmetic starting point” and the actual starting point that a judge adopts. Two equations were used to measure percent deviation from the arithmetic starting point before and after adjustment for guilty plea sentence reductions. Extracting data on drug trafficking cases from an open‐source database from the Hong Kong Judiciary ( = 356), we illustrate how percent deviation can be employed as a measure of inter‐judge disparity using hierarchical linear models (HLMs). Our findings suggest that approximately 8 to 10 percent of the deviation in sentence length can be attributed to judges’ differential sentencing behaviors. The deviation is affected by case characteristics as well as judicial characteristics. Due to the wide guideline ranges, departures from said guidelines’ ranges are not common. This indicates that the guideline ranges mask the deviation and inter‐judge disparity that exist and recur.

The article argues that over the years a series of gradual developments has taken place in the judicial review policies of Israel’s Supreme Court, whereby the Court expanded its ad hoc discretion in determining the constitutional limits that apply to primary legislation. Israeli constitutionalism has become judiciary-centered. The article suggests that judicial discretion that the Israeli Supreme Court tends to exercise in constitutional matters is of two types: substantive judicial discretion, which concerns the interpretation or application of the law; and adjudicative discretion, which includes both the discretion to deny in limine petitions in which the Court does not deem it necessary to grant relief according to considerations such as standing or delay; and the Court’s discretion in the manner of the hearing. The article suggests three illuminations of Israeli judiciary-centered constitutionalism: expenditure of the justices’ awareness of their discretion; the decline of the rules structuring judicial discretion; and a re-rise of the justices’ recognition of legitimacy of adjudicative discretion due to the expansion of substantive judicial discretion.

La carga de la prueba y los estándares de prueba son dos instituciones que provienen del antiguo sistema de valoración legal o tasada de la prueba, en el que tenían todo su sentido. Sin embargo, en el sistema de valoración libre, la institución de la carga de la prueba deja de tener cualquier utilidad, y los estándares de prueba se convierten en simples remedos de las antiguas categorías "probatio plena" y "probatio semiplena" que resultan imposibles de objetivar. En el presente artículo se detallan y justifican extensamente las anteriores conclusiones.

This article is devoted to the analysis of realization of judicial discretion at judicial stages of criminal process of Ukraine. In the article author states that all powers of the court of first instance, in which discretion can be applied, can be divided into four categories: 1) judicial discretion concerning the procedure for examining evidences; 2) ju-dicial discretion concerning the procedure for conducting judicial investigation; 3) judicial discretion concerning the provision of criminal proceedings; 4) judicial discre-tion with regard to securing the trial. Author notes that in most cases judicial discretion concerns either the pro-cedure for examining the evidence or the procedure for conducting the trial. At the same time, the consistently implements the thesis “judge is an arbitrator”, which has substantially reduced role of the court in the process of forming the volume of evidence and examining it. Indeed, only court determines amount of evidence that must be examined, but only the evidence provided by the parties to the criminal proceedings can be evaluated. Court cannot, in its sole discretion, expand this amount, and narrowing it requires a substantiated argument.Author also notes that, in view of the similarity of procedures, judicial discretion used in the trial is similar to the judicial discretion during the review of court deci-sions in appeal and cassation. In this case, judicial discre-tion is mostly conducted by the cancellation of court deci-sions by courts of appeal and cassation, in connection with a substantial violation of the requirements of criminal procedural law. The author notes that in order to estab-lish such of the violation of the requirements of the CPC of Ukraine, the court should: 1) determine what rights the respective participant of criminal proceedings had; 2) determine whether these rights have been violated; 3) de-termine whether a corresponding violation of rights can be considered a material violation of the requirements of the CPC of Ukraine.

The main claim of this paper is the following: In a typical rational legal system, legal adjudication is necessarily discretional. Discretion is the result of what I call ‘systemic indeterminacy’. Systemic indeterminacy is the thesis that claims that typical rational legal systems that have an interpretative code with more than one interpretative directive and the non-redundancy clause are necessarily indeterminate. Since typical rational legal systems do not have redundant rules a plurality of interpretative directives will necessarily yield a plurality of interpretative results. Due to the non-liquet rule judges are obligated to choose among the different interpretative results provided by the interpretative code. In other words, by building a thesis on legal indeterminacy as the consequence of having a plurality of interpretative directives that necessarily yield different results, I proceed to provide an account of discretion as a necessary feature of legal adjudication. Title in thesis list of papers: Systemic Indeterminacy and Judicial Discretion

The well-being of the child is a common criterion in many Polish normative regulations pertaining to different branches of law. It is both a tool for the law-making and the executive bodies, employed to direct the law-applying bodies towards ensuring full protection of the child. This article is focused on analysing interpretative judicial discretion with respect to the well-being of the child as manifested in the judicial decisions of the Supreme Court and in the judgements of the Supreme Administrative Court and Constitutional Tribunal. In the course of the research, the author undertakes to determine the essence of interpretative judicial discretion in cases predominantly focused on establishing the current and postulated situation of the child with a view to ensuring the most favourable ruling for the same.

In the sentencing of murder cases in England and Wales, it is required by law that judges must take into consideration the factors listed in sentencing laws and guidelines (henceforth statutory factors). However, judges also have the discretion to include factors that are not listed in such laws or guidelines (henceforth non-statutory factors). This paper explores judges’ positioning towards legal constraints and judicial discretion in sentencing by applying the Appraisal framework to analyse statutory and non-statutory factors in the sentencing remarks for a randomly selected murder case. The major analytical findings are that, with regard to statutory factors, attitudes are implicit and are mainly presented through heteroglossia, while, with regard to non-statutory factors, attitudes are explicit and are mainly presented through monoglossia. These different appraisal features of statutory and non-statutory factors reflect the constraints of sentencing laws and guidelines on the judge’s sentencing practice, and the judge’s full play of judicial discretion in the sentencing of this case. It is expected that findings of this study could add to current understanding of sentencing practice, while its analytical procedure could facilitate appraisal analysis of more sentencing remarks, which would, in turn, complement socio-legal studies on sentencing practice.

The article examines the results of the reform of the law in terms of giving a notarized fact of increased evidentiary force under Part 5 of Art. 61 СPC. The author comes to the disappointing conclusion that the courts ignore these innovations.

В статье исследуется соотношение судебного усмотрения при оценке процессуального поведения стороны и злоупотребления сторонами процессуальным правом при рассмотрении гражданских дел на отдельных стадиях процесса.

Widening of differentiation of criminal responsibility for preparation of a crime or attempt to commit a crime by amendments of Criminal Code of Ukraine in 2008 led not only to positive effects but to certain problems for judicial implementation as well. The legislator differentiated the upper border of punishment but failed to consider the peculiarity of application of § 2, 3 of article 68 by courts, concerning that sanctions of the most Articles of Special part of Criminal Code had been constructed without due regard for such amendments in future. This led to breach of balance between individualization and differentiation of criminal responsibility. Implementation of principle of justice of criminal law and execution of tasks of the Criminal Code are highly dependent on resolution of the mentioned problem. The purpose of the article. Establishing the shortcomings of legal regulations of differentiation of criminal responsibility for preparation of a crime or attempt to commit a crime and making proposals on their removal are the purposes of this research. The scientific novelty of the article is reflected in establishing the interrelation between the rules of imposing punishment for unfinished crime and differentiation of criminal responsibility. Legal shortcomings of such a differentiation are analyzed in this aspect, the proposals on their removal are made. The essence of differentiated lower border of punishment for unfinished crime is explained. The lack of necessity of establishing minimum borders of alternative less serious punishments is grounded. Сonclusions. Limitation of the upper border of the most serious punishment for preparation of a crime or attempt to commit a crime widens differentiation of criminal responsibility and diminishes judicial discretion without no grounds, taking into consideration the leak of normative regulation of the lower border of punishment. That’s why certain amendments of the Code are necessary to introduce proportionality between the upper limit of punishment (according to § 2, 3 of article 68) and lower limit. It is necessary to consider that most sanctions of articles of the Special part of the Code contain alternative punishments. But the mentioned rule shall be applied only to the most serious of them except life imprisonment. Having the possibility of wider individualization among certain alternative punishments, the court would be able to apply them considering the borders of the sanction. Proportional decrease in borders of these less strict punishments wouldn’t improve the possibilities of judicial discretion, for it always depends on the most extreme limits of sanctions in both ends. Alternatively, this could lead to breaches between the seriousness of the upper limit of less strict punishment and lower limit of the more strict one.

Criminal sentencing is a complex cognitive activity often performed by the unaided mind under suboptimal conditions. As such, sentencers may not behave according to policy, guidelines, or training. We analyzed the distribution of sentences meted out in one year in two different jurisdictions (i.e., England and Wales, and New South Wales, Australia). We reveal that sentencers prefer certain numbers when meting out sentence lengths (in custody and community service) and amounts (for fines/compensation). These “common doses” accounted for over 90 percent of sentences in each jurisdiction. The size of these doses increased as sentences became more severe, and doses followed a logarithmic pattern. Our findings are compatible with psychological research on preferred numbers and are reminiscent of Weber's and Fechner's laws. The findings run contrary to arguments against efforts to reduce judicial discretion, and potentially undermine the notion of individualized justice, as well as raise questions about the (cost) effectiveness of sentencing.

The object of this research is establishment of the principle of good faith at different historical periods in the context of formation of various approaches in the doctrine and practice of civil law. Due to the absence of unanimity of opinions regarding the formation of moral-ethical categories within the national civil law, this scientific field is considered problematic and interesting for examination. The subject of this research is the historical, ideological and practical prerequisites that influenced the formation of concept of the principle of good faith in the national civil law. The scientific novelty consists in the proposed by the author principle of good faith in the historical, doctrinal and practical aspects, which leads to suggestion of future course of development of the principle of good faith in the national civil law by means of improving the current civil legislation. The conclusion is drawn that at the present stage the principle of good faith, despite the universality and crosscutting nature, initially forethought by the concept of development of civil legislation, should be concretized in the various civil legal relations, taking into account their peculiarities and specifics. Such type of circumstantiation of the general provisions of law would increase the possibility for introduction of corresponding amendments into the principle of good faith on the level of social norms.

Interpretation is fashionable, and not just in jurisprudence. Yet for all the attention interpretation has received in the past few decades, we have a poor understanding of what it is and what counts as doing it well. This thesis begins with the question, ‘What is interpretation?’ I argue that the reigning orthodoxy which holds that interpretation seeks meaning is misguided. A more illuminating account of interpretation is developed on which interpretation seeks understandings. After explaining what interpretation is and how it works, I explore the norms which govern it. As part of this exploration, I expose a number of mistakes in Stanley Fish’s account of the nature of interpretive constraints. Ib then develop an alternative account of what it means to say that objects (including texts) constrain their own interpretation, and I show that they often do so. I outline a view of interpretation I call almost pragmatism according to which the appropriate standards for judging an interpretation vary with the purpose for making the interpretation. I also argue that legal theorists have misunderstood and misapplied Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rules and interpretation in a variety of ways. I conclude that there is nothing useful we can learn about law from Wittgenstein’s remarks on rules. The second part of this thesis uses the improved understanding of interpretation developed in the first part to shed light on problems which have long perplexed students of jurisprudence. I begin by considering what standards should be used to assess judicial interpretation. I argue that the appropriate standards to use will properly vary among different legal systems, and thus general jurisprudence can contribute little to the debate. Two general suggestions for norms which might govern legal interpretation—fidelity to legislative intent and Ronald Dworkin’s best light requirement—are taken up in the final chapters. In preparation for the final chapters, I summarize Joseph Raz’s account of authority, which forms the basis of many of the arguments to be considered. I suggest that Raz’s account of legitimacy is inadequate for understanding the legitimacy of political authorities. I then turn to arguments Raz offers suggesting that, in a limited sense, judicial interpretations ought to be judged according to their fidelity to legislative intent. I contend that Raz is wrong in thinking that we must interpret in accord with the intention of law-makers in order to make sense of their authority. The final chapter examines Dworkin’s best light requirement. I present an understanding of its content and scope consistent with what we learned about interpretation in the opening chapters and consider important objections to it. I conclude that Dworkin’s interpretive method is not inconsistent with law’s authority, as Raz and others have maintained.