PECULIARITIES OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND LEGAL SUPPORT OF ACTIVITIES OF PUBLIC COUNCILS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

Abstract. The evolution of interaction between civil society and the state aims to find the most effective mechanism for guaranteeing and implementing the Basic Law of human and civil rights and freedoms. One of these forms of interaction has externally formed as separate subjects of administrative law – public councils, which are new to administrative science and practice. As a kind of advisory body, their creation has been initiated by the relevant request of society, individual social groups, and citizens on specific socially important issues within the competence of a public authority. Compared to other foreign countries, our state does not have substantial experience in providing quality legal and organisational support for the activities of such collective entities. Throughout the functioning of public councils, their legal basis and managerial principles have numerously changed. The latter were dictated by the state and aimed at improving the work of such advisory bodies. However, quite frequently, they did not improve the general legal regulation of public councils. One of the reasons for such an outcome was the superficial legal regulation of public councils induced by the lack of detailed and comprehensive theoretical and empirical analyses of their practice, which is determined by the administrative legislation of Ukraine. On the other hand, the complexity of the study of such collective entities, the establishment of which is initiated directly by society, is caused by the peculiarity of their legal nature, which has its unique features. The study of the latter is one of the critical tasks that must be performed by the science and practice of administrative law. In this article, we will try to explore the organisational and legal basis for the functioning of the institution of public councils as one of the types of advisory bodies through which civil society and stakeholders have the opportunity to join the process of researching other matters which belong to such authorities at all levels. We attempted to analyse the current domestic legislation, which determines the precise legal basis for the activities of public councils and establishes the foundations for the organisation of their work. Such research made it possible to draw conclusions about the existence of certain problematic aspects of the activities of public councils in the executive branch, which relate to the procedure for their formation and the peculiarities of the implementation of specific decisions.