The thesis is the first in the domestic legal doctrine complex, scientific research of the procedural order of protection of defendant’s rights in the civil process of Ukraine. The paper conducts a detailed study of the essence of the civil procedural legal status of the defendant in civil proceedings, reveals the features of general and special civil procedural rights of the defendant.
Particular attention has been paid to such institutions of the civil procedural law of Ukraine, which perform the function of protecting the rights and interests of the defendant in civil proceedings, namely: defendant's objection, counterclaim, counter-provision, judicial conciliation procedures, professional legal assistance, self-representation of legal entities.
During the dissertation research, for the first time after the reform of the civil procedural legislation, the procedural and legal nature of the defendant's objections in the process consideration of the case has been analyzed. The author substantiates the affiliation of the statements on the merits and the statements on procedural issues to the procedural means of protection of the rights of the defendant in civil proceedings.
As a result of the analysis of foreign legislation on the use of alternative dispute resolution, the author has proposed and substantiated the feasibility of introducing a mechanism of mandatory conciliation procedures as the effective and necessary legal remedies of protecting the rights of the defendant in civil proceedings in Ukraine.
During the investigation, it has been resolved that the absence of mutual concessions in concluding an amicable agreement cannot be an unconditional condition for a decision to refuse to approve an amicable agreement.
Particular attention has been paid to the provisions on the delimitation of the concepts of "representation in civil proceedings", "professional legal assistance", "self-representation", as follows: 1) representation in civil proceedings should be considered as an independent institution, which is a system of procedural law that addresses the relationship between the representative and the principal, on the one hand, and between the court and the representative, on the other hand; 2) professional legal assistance should be considered in a broad sense as advising the client's lawyer and representing his interests in court; 3) the concept of "self-representation" has become a novelty of civil procedural law, and although there is no legal definition, we believe that inherently it means the ability of legal entities of all forms of ownership to independently represent their interests in court represented by authorized internal corporate and employment documents, persons.
It has been proved that the "success fee" is a form of attorney's remuneration for escorting a suspended case and that the court cannot restrict the defendant's right to reimbursement for professional legal assistance, making such a right conditional on the court providing evidence of actual payment services, as the financial obligations of the parties remain between the lawyer and the client, regardless of the legal assessment of the court of the reality of the settlement between the parties.
In connection with the introduction in 2017 of the monopoly of lawyers on representation in court, the author has paid special attention to the study of professional legal assistance of a lawyer in civil proceedings in Ukraine, as well as the institute of self-representation of legal entities in civil proceedings. In order to provide an objective assessment of national legislation, the author systematizes the existing case law in Ukraine on the protection of the defendant in civil proceedings in Ukraine, as well as outlines its key problems and further trends.
The practical value of the work lies in the fact that the dissertation outlines the key problems of legal regulation of the defense of the defendant in the civil proceedings of Ukraine. The relevance of the dissertation is also enhanced by the fact that it offers the author’s vision of further areas of improvement of the provisions of civil procedural law on the outlined problem.
