A number of provisions and conclusions elucidating the content and the essence of the rule of law as a principle of administrative process are formulated in the paper.
The author's definitions of the concepts of administrative process and principles of administrative process are formulated: administrative process should be understood as the activity of specially authorized state bodies regulated by administrative and legal norms on consideration of circumstances and facts based on law and causing legal consequences and which ends with the adoption of the act of the norms of law implementation; the principles of the administrative process should be understood as the basic ideas that determine its essence and direction, axiological aspect and are mandatory for theimplementation by the relevant public authorities and their officials.
The author substantiates that the principle of the rule of law is not a separate fundamental idea that determines the content and direction of the administrative process, but it is a number of requirements for the organization and implementation of the administrative process, which determine its role and place among the principles of administrative process.
The thesis identifies the following forms of implementation of the principle of the rule of law within the administrative process in the states of the continental law system: creating and effective functioning of the judicial system, which ensures the implementation of the right to a fair trial; strict performance by the public authorities officials of their duties; prevention of abuse of power by public authorities, including prevention of substitution of one procedural action for another, criminal procedure for administrative, etc., proper justification of actions as to human rights restrictions; public control over the public authorities activities related to the human rights restriction; harmonization of law and order in time and legal certainty of legal acts.
The necessity of definition as directions of improvement of the process of implementation of the principle of the rule of law of ideological, scientific and practical, normative and legal, and law-enforcing is substantiated. A number of changes to the national legislation is offered within the normative and legal direction.
The author has improved the methodology of the rule of law cognition, based on a system of research principles, approaches and methods and based on the need for epistemology of the rule of law within the natural and law understanding of law and its interpretation as a complex phenomenon that should be viewed as an idea, a doctrine and as a principle.
The typology of scientific sources, the epistemological object of which is the principle of the rule of law, is suggested by the criterion of the subject of cognition for the following groups: 1) scientific papers, the subject of cognition of which are
the principles of law; 2) scientific papers, the subject of cognition of which are the principles of the legal process in general and of the administrative process in particular; 3) scientific papers, the subject of cognition of which is the rule of law
as a principle in general and the principle of the administrative process in particular.
The provisions on the immanence of the domestic and non-systematized nature (until the end of the twentieth century) and international and codified nature (since the end of the twentieth century) to the principles of administrative procedure within the states of the continental system of law have received the further development within the paper.
The immanence of a complex nature to the rule of law determines its place within the system of principles of the administrative process and determines their interaction. The principle of the rule of law is not a separate fundamental idea that
determines the content and direction of the administrative process, but it is a number of requirements for the organization and implementation of the administrative process. Based on this, the paper argues the inexpediency of the
approach to determining the relationship between the rule of law and the principles of legality, legal equality; responsibilities of public administration bodies and the principle of free access to justice, which are an integral part of the rule of law and
determine its content and essence.
The principle of the rule of law is complemented by the principles of administrative process such as openness and transparency, as well as efficiency, which contribute to the implementation of constitutional provisions on person as a basic social value, the people as a source of power, the duty of the state to assert human rights.
It is emphasized that for Ukraine, which proclaimed the recognition of the rule of law in 1996, the epistemology of the experience of implementing this Western concept in the practice of public authorities, in particular, in the administrative process, is important.
