THE CONCEPT OF LAW APPLICATION AND ITS FEATURES IN THE LIGHT OF JUDGES’ PROFESSIONAL LEGAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Abstract

The article examines issues related to the application of both substantive and procedural law from the perspective of the legislator, who expects the court to apply the content of legal norms in the manner envisaged and intended by the legislator. At the same time, the reality of law enforcement in the sphere of justice indicates that no legal norm can ideally encompass the entire set – and sometimes the multidirectional nature – of particular social legal relations that have acquired a contentious character. Therefore, in the administration of justice, courts widely apply the interpretation of legal norms in order to expand the boundaries of their substantive legal meaning, and in the absence of legal norms or in cases of their substantive incompleteness or inaccuracy, courts resort to judicial law-making. At the same time, the legal policy of the Supreme Court in the field of justice is oriented toward a classical model, namely the stability of judicial decisions and judicial practice based on a unified understanding of legal norms and, consequently, their application. Undoubtedly, the entire law-application process is a complex issue, as it engages the full natural-law essence of judges’ professional legal consciousness, which is grounded in professional knowledge as well as moral-legal, social-legal, and economic-legal awareness. In accordance with this consciousness, courts, when delivering judicial decisions, genuinely influence disputed legal relations by conferring upon them the status of regulated relations. Thus, the driving force of such regulation is the judges’ professional and theoretical knowledge, which is directed toward the content of a specific legal norm, where it is analyzed and subsequently correlated with the content of particular disputed legal relations. At the same time, at every stage of the lawapplication process, a judge’s conclusion – regardless of whether it is favorable or unfavorable to one party or another – is formed on the basis of the judge’s inner conviction. The substance of such inner legal conviction is an emotional-legal, psychological-legal, philosophical-legal, and logical-legal unity, on the basis of which there arises a conscious understanding of both substantive and procedural law, enabling the court to reach a general conclusion as to the fairness or unfairness of particular claims.