The thesis is devoted to comprehensive research of the judicial ethics as the deontological basis of the status of a judge, which determines and directs behavior of a judge in order to ensure the authority and legitimacy of the judicial power in the state.
The concept of judicial ethics, its meaning and characteristics as a component of the status of a judge are systematically and consistently considered. The thesis is analyzed the system of ethical standards of a professional ethics of a judge and the specifics of responsibility in case of violation of ethical norms by a judge.
During the research, it was noted that understanding of judicial ethics differs depending on spheres in which it is researched or has an impact on. From a theoretical perspective, judicial ethics appears as a philosophical concept and a scientific discipline about the morality of professional judges. In practical terms, judicial ethics provide a system of rules (norms) of behavior of judges, which determine the moral nature of their activities during and beyond the administration of justice, and affect consciousness of a judge, improving his/her professional and personal qualities as a representative of the profession, which requires an appropriate level of recognition and authority in society.
It is delimited the concept of judicial ethics with such related categories as judicial ethics and judicial etiquette.
It has been formulated a number of objective prerequisites that determine the ethical basis of the status of a judge: 1) specificity of a judicial process, stipulated by primacy of the idea of justice and conflictogenicity of its environment; 2) independence
of a judge as an indispensable and indisputable attribute of judicial activity;
3) corporativity (professional solidarity); 4) self-limitation imposed by a judge.
It is proposed to consider the legal regulation of judicial ethics taking into account two levels: international and national. International level of legal regulation of judicial ethics covers several groups of sources: 1) international agreements of a universal or regional nature; 2) documents adopted by international or regional authorities of judicial community. The peculiarity of the legal regulation of the judicial ethics at the national level is the "vertical" nature of establishing the relevant norms, starting with the Fundamental Law of the state, a specialized law that regulates the status of judges, and the code of ethics which is naturally determined by the degree of their abstraction or concretization.
It is substantiated the statement that the ethical standards of judicial activity are universal stable guidelines, perceptions, and beliefs crystallized from social morality and specified by the professional environment. They "grow" from individual perceptions of an individual about social morality and value of justice, his/her spiritual potential for development and self-limitation, which transforms into a system of values that acquire the status of rules for a social group distinguished by professional status - judges. They create a single space in which behavior of representatives of the judicial community is regulated taking into account historically formed beliefs about the meaning and ideals of justice, stimulating and motivating judges to choose their optimal model of behavior, taking into account specific circumstances and situations in which a judge is.
The system of ethical standards is considered in relation to the rules regulating behavior of judges in administration of justice and beyond its procedural activities.
Emphasis is placed on such, but not exclusively, universal principles that guide behavior of a judge during the administration of justice, such as: the principle of respect, the principle of equality and non-discrimination, the principle of neutrality
(impartiality) of a judge, the principle of publicity. They are closely related: violation of one principle quite often leads to violation of another one.
