Salo P. Legal characteristics of the form of administrative proceedings in Ukraine

The dissertation consists of three chapters and deals with a monographic study of the procedural order of consideration and resolution by administrative courts of Ukraine of disputes arising in the field of public law relations. The scientific novelty of the obtained results is that the dissertation work represents the first comprehensive scientific study of the legislatively established forms of administrative procedure applied by national courts for the consideration and resolution of administrative cases. During the research process, it was found that legal categories such as administrative procedural form and form of administrative procedure are characterized by diversity, and their concepts and content are interpreted differently in the scientific community. At the same time, an author's definition of procedural form in administrative procedure is provided, which is understood as the procedural order or the regulation of the activities of administrative courts regarding the consideration and resolution of public legal disputes with the aim of providing judicial protection for the rights, freedoms, and interests of private individuals against violations by subjects of governmental authority. The grounds and conditions under which the administrative court may consider an administrative case under each of the forms of administrative procedure are determined and clarified. It is established that any administrative case may be heard under the simplified lawsuit proceedings, except for those cases that are exclusively subject to the rules of general lawsuit proceedings. It is argued that the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine grants the court wide discretion in choosing the form of administrative procedure for the consideration of administrative cases, limiting this right of the court only in those cases where, by the will of the legislator, they cannot be heard in any other way except under the rules of general lawsuit proceedings. It is noted that among the relevant criteria, there is no criterion for the priority of expedited case resolution, although Part 2 of the Article 12 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine explicitly identifies it as a priority for the consideration of an administrative case in simplified lawsuit proceedings. At the same time, this gives grounds to assert that there is an inconsistency between the aforementioned provisions of the Code because the provisions of Part 3 of the Article 257 essentially negate the essence of Part 2 of the Article 12, which defines the purpose (designation) of simplified lawsuit proceedings as one of the forms of administrative procedure. In this regard, it is proposed to amend Part 3 of the Article 257 of the Code of Administrative Procedure by adding an additional criterion, namely, the priority of expedited case resolution. As a result of the dissertation research, authorial procedural rules have been developed, which enable the correct choice of the appropriate form of administrative procedure for the consideration of each administrative case, whether it be general or simplified lawsuit proceedings, or simplified lawsuit proceedings with or without summoning the parties to a court session (in written proceedings). Due to their clarity and comprehensibility, these rules will be valuable not only for judges and administrative court staff but also for individuals participating in administrative cases. Additionally, the research conducted has shown the need to address certain gaps and legal conflicts that exist in the legal regulation of the judicial administrative process. To this goal, amendments to the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine have been developed, which can improve the procedure for conducting administrative proceedings in Ukraine and streamline the judicial process. The author's legal position, according to which an administrative case can be considered in simplified lawsuit proceedings at the initiative and discretion of the court, and that it is not mandatory for the plaintiff to request the consideration of the case under the rules of simplified lawsuit proceedings, deserves attention. Such a request is one of the possible ways to address the issue of considering the case in this form of administrative procedure. As a result of the conducted research, a series of other conclusions, proposals, and recommendations have been formulated, aimed at improving the norms of procedural law, reducing the number of contentious legislative provisions in the field of administrative procedure, ensuring the unity and consistency of judicial practice. In turn, this will contribute to adherence to the principle of legal certainty, as one of the key elements of the rule of law, enhance the effectiveness of justice in administrative cases, and strengthen the guarantees of judicial protection for individuals whose rights, freedoms, and interests have been violated by authorities in public legal relations.