THE VALUES OF THE WESTERN LEGAL TRADITION IN THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL CONCEPT OF PROFESSOR V. SOKURENKO
Authors: Fedushchak-Paslavska Hanna 
Published: August 2022

The main directions of the scientific research by professor V. Sokurenko are analyzed in the article. It is found that the political and legal concept of the scholar, which was formed under the influence of political, economic, various social factors, was based on the natural-legal type of legal understanding. Scientific and pedagogical activity of V. Sokurenko, imbued with relevant ideas, gives grounds to speak about the integrity and non-contradiction of his political and legal concept, in particular, the late 80's – early 90s of the XX century. The concepts of the representatives of the historical school of law and the school of free law had a significant influence on the formation of the scholar's views. Professor V. Sokurenko was interested in the peculiarities of decision-making in the courts of common law, he was impressed by the law-making role of a judge, his ability to restore justice in the absence of a rule that directly regulates the relevant legal relations. It is concluded that the new socio-political circumstances of the late 80's – early 90's significantly influenced the scientific and pedagogical activities of V. Sokurenko. If formerly the ideas of domination of the rightful law, separation of powers, legal state, freedom of contract, the principles of the rule of law, the separation of law and legislation, the evaluative function of law, the guarantees of private property and others could be seen between the lines of numerous works of the scholar, the process of disintegration of the Soviet Union contributed not only to the emergence of new areas of research, but also to another content of training courses, taught to law students by professor V. Sokurenko. It is established that the central idea of the political and legal concept of the scholar is the problem of legal understanding. Almost all the issues that he considered in his training courses or in scientific research in one way or another concerned the understanding of law, its correlation with other phenomena, as well as legal values. It was important to note that the values in law are the predetermined requirements that law must meet. An effective legal order is formed as a result of following the values in the process of legal regulation, and deviating from them will have the opposite effect. The values of the European doctrine of legal understanding, enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, as the basis of the political and legal concept of professor V. Sokurenko, allowed it to remain relevant to this day. Thus, teaching the political and legal concepts of philosophers and scholars of the past, the researcher had always stayed focused on the ideas of the rule of law, democracy, human rights. Having a natural-legal type of legal understanding, professor V. Sokurenko not only distinguished law from legislation, emphasized the axiological function of law, but also accented on the rule of rightful law. Today it is also topical for a scholar to interpret the concept of abuse of law as a form of use of legal norms, when in compliance with the legal form (letter of the law), there is a deviation from the social purpose of the norm (spirit of the law), which harms the common interest.