Chuprun Y. Immunities within Civil Legal Proceedings

The author of the work has carried out the first in Ukraine comprehensive theoretical research of the institution of immunities in civil legal proceedings: the problem’s scientific development status has been determined; the research methodology has been outlined; the essence of immunities in civil legal proceedings of Ukraine has been determined; immunities within civil legal proceedings have been studied as the category of civil procedural law; the place of the category of “immunity in civil procedural law” has been outlined among other related categories of civil legal proceedings; the classification of immunities in civil legal proceedings has been accomplished; the author has focused on peculiarities of enforcement and legal enforcement of certain types of immunities in civil legal proceedings (witness immunity in civil legal proceedings, immunities regulated by the norms of international law and religious immunity in regard to priests). The first section of the dissertation is focused on studying the status of scientific development of the problem of immunities in civil legal proceedings of Ukraine, the methodological framework of scientific study of the essence of immunities in civil legal proceedings of Ukraine, the evolution of legal regulation of immunities in civil legal proceedings of Ukraine. It is argued that theoretical principles of immunities’ existence is not sufficiently researched in this area. The available publications of domestic authors on this issue have been studied. The author has accomplished the digest of the works by Ukrainian experts in civil procedural law focused on the diverse aspects of the immunity problem in civil legal proceedings and has clarified that the status of scientific thought on immunities in civil legal proceedings is relevant with the current requests (needs). The essence and importance of immunities in civil procedural law, as well as the problem of their classification have been considered in the second section of the dissertation. The definition of immunities in civil procedural law has been provided. The author has suggested to define immunities in civil procedural law as the system of norms that forms a separate inter-sectoral legal institution – immunities in civil procedural law inherent in a specific range of persons, whose list is contained in both international and national legislation, which creates a special legal regime for entities having it by indicating peculiar exceptions to the general legal status, which exempt a person from performing certain duties or from responsibility for certain actions arising from the person’s legal status, and being a guarantee of socially useful activities contributing to the performance of certain duties. The researched problems of classifying immunities in civil procedural law make it possible to conclude that any classifications of certain legal categories are always conditional and more or less subjective. Appropriate classifications can play a significant role in improving the conceptual apparatus of immunities in civil legal proceedings. The usage of the systematic and structural method of scientific cognition allows us to obtain the results of the classification of immunities in civil legal proceedings, which may be of practical and theoretical importance. The author of the work has determined that existing classifications of immunities in civil legal proceedings (internal and external immunity (given the manifestation of internal and external elements of the immunity) may be grouped into: unlimited and limited (according to legal immunities’ scope of action); mandatory (absolute) and optional (depending on the obligation of its application); personal direct immunity and indirect legal immunity (the criterion of the demarcation of a witness immunity by certain types should be the existence of equitable right (legal capacity) to refuse to testify against oneself and / or family members, relatives, etc.); imperative and dispositive; personal immunity and professional immunity (in accordance with the nature of the legal interest), etc. To fulfill the tasks specified in the dissertation research, it is mostly acceptable to study immunities enshrined in domestic legislation and immunities regulated by the norms of international law. Such a classification, in particular, allows us to single out the need to study immunities that are regulated by the norms of international law, given the current situation related to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.