Yevsiukov Y. Legal status of Ukraine’s executive authorities under martial law

The dissertation highlights the legal status of state executive authorities of Ukraine under martial law and substantiates proposals for improving national legislation regulating relevant social relations. It has been established that the state of scientific knowledge of Ukrainian executive bodies’ legal status in extraordinary circumstances is characterized by fragmentary research and the absence of a systematic approach to the analysis of transformations caused by the prolonged action of an extraordinary legal regime. It has been found that until 2014, the outlined issue was not the subject of thorough scientific study, and one of the determining factors of its actualization is the armed aggression against Ukraine and the introduction of prolonged martial law. Key gaps in the scientific discourse have been identified, namely the absence of criteria for assessing the permissible limits of transformation of Ukrainian executive bodies’ legal status in view of the duration of martial law; insufficient research on the correlation between expanded executive and administrative powers and mechanisms of control and accountability; the lack of disclosure of the risks of institutionalizing temporary management models as permanent elements of the public administration system; the analysis insufficiency of the interaction between state executive bodies and military administrations through the prism of the rule of law principles. The urgency of formation of a new research paradigm combining administrative legal analysis of the executive bodies’ status with an assessment of organizational and functional changes in their activities, determines the limits of permissible expansion of powers without violating constitutional principles, and takes into account the specifics of the long-term functioning of the state under martial law as an independent phenomenon that requires separate scientific consideration. It is argued that the methodological basis for studying the legal status of state executive bodies of Ukraine under martial law is a comprehensive system that integrates classical legal tools with a postmodern methodological paradigm. The heuristic potential of the activity approach as a key methodological tool, allowing to get rid of legal dogmatism and focus on the real management practices of state executive bodies of Ukraine, their specific actions and results, which is of great importance given the increased requirements for the effectiveness of legal norms in conditions of martial law, has been proven. The necessity of applying the hermeneutic method to comprehend not only the literal wording of legal norms, but also their internal content, taking into account the national legal context, social and cultural and moral factors, which ensures understanding of the status of administrative bodies as a complex system, is argued. It has been established that the fundamental methodological discrepancy of the study is the dialectical contradiction between the urgency to expand the executive bodies’ powers to respond effectively to crisis challenges and the necessity to preserve the rule of law principles, control, and accountability, the resolution of which requires a systematic approach to analyzing transformations of legal status as a multilevel system of interrelated elements. The author’s definition of the executive bodies’of Ukraine legal status concept is substantiated: the executive bodies’ of Ukraine legal status should be understood as a comprehensive legal characteristic that determines their official position in the legal system and characterizes the powers granted to them and the responsibilities provided for by law. It has been established that the executive bodies’ legal status is a specific concept in relation to legal status, possessing all the characteristics of the latter and have additional features. It is proposed to consider the state executive bodies’ of Ukraine structural legal status as including such elements as powers and responsibilities. Based on a summary of a comparative analysis of foreign models of the state executive authorities’ functioning under martial law, it has been established that the democratic effectiveness of an emergency legal regime is determined not by the scope of the administration’s expanded powers, but by the way they are institutionalized and limited. A system of interrelated conceptual provisions for improving the constitutional and legal regulation of the executive bodies’ activities under martial law has been substantiated, based on the idea of the internal integration of emergency powers into the constitutional order.