Formation And Development Of Constitutional And Legal Responsibility In Ukraine During The Cossack Republic And The Hetman State

Abstract

This scientific article is devoted to the problems of formation and development of the institute of constitutional and legal responsibility in the period of the Cossack republic and the Hetman state. A special role here belongs to the legal enshrinement of this institution in the provisions of the Constitution of Philip Orlyk.

In general, in legal science there are various scientific directions in the definition of constitutional liability. Such scientific approaches can be combined into four groups, in particular:

1)    scientific direction, which is based on the substantiation of a narrow understanding of constitutional and legal responsibility, which is based on the recognition of only retrospective (negative) constitutional and legal responsibility;

2)    scientific direction, which substantiates a broad understanding of constitutional and legal responsibility, which involves a combination of retrospective (negative) and long-term (positive) responsibility;

3)    scientific direction, which distinguishes between retrospective (negative) and long-term (positive) responsibility;

4) scientific direction, which substantiates both the combination of retrospective (negative) and perspective (positive) responsibility, and the existence of only retrospective (negative) responsibility.

At the same time, in the context of the latest trends in Ukrainian state-building and law-making, as well as taking into account the need for historical and legal (rather than purely theoretical, sectoral or institutional) study of the needs of transformation of legal responsibility in Ukraine and its individual types, constitutional and legal responsibility needs separate scientific research from a historical and legal point of view, including the formation and development during the Cossack republic and the Hetman state.

According to the author, the acts of the Cossack republic and the Hetman state, and especially the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk of 1710 not only determined the foundations of the political and socio-economic system of Ukraine, the apparatus of state power on the basis of division of power into legislative, executive and judicial, but also provided constitutional legal responsibility as a means of ensuring interaction between branches of government and a means of their effective functioning.

This constitutional and legal responsibility existed both in the form of positive responsibility, which manifested itself in a clear definition of the powers of authorities and the establishment of ways and forms of interaction between them, and in the form of negative responsibility, which provided for sanctions against officials at all levels.