Honcharenko V. The legal status of a foreign lawyer in Ukraine

The paper examines the elaboration of the institution of access of foreign lawyers to the legal profession in Ukraine and outlines its main stages. Each stage is subjected to a detailed analysis, based on which it becomes apparent that the representation in a suit (and later – the advocacy) during its historical development has been changing towards the raising requirements for practicing law professionals, which were directly proportional to the legal liaison between the lawyer and the State of judicature. This work studied the experience of foreign lawyers admission to the profession in several countries of the Common law and Romano-Germanic law groups, in the EU law, as well as in the former USSR member-countries, and based on this the international legal preconditions for the professional activity of foreign lawyers in Ukraine are determined. In particular, it is proposed to consider the provisions of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The thesis analyzed the summary of principles of legalization of a foreign lawyer in Ukraine, which covers the entire sequence of legally significant actions and procedures related to the acquisition by such a lawyer the right to act as court counsel and perform other types of professional legal assistance in accordance with the requirements of national legislation. Basing on the system analysis of the current Ukrainian legislation and local acts of the self-government bodies of the Bar, the rights and obligations of a foreign lawyer in Ukraine have been investigated. The discriminatory nature of the restrictions on the realization of their competencies is established.