Regarding the normative definition of the concept and essence of justice
Authors: Komziuk V.T. 
Published: June 2023

This article is aimed at the need for normative definition of the concept and essence of justice as a particularly important term in the sphere of realization of judicial power, judicial system and activity of courts. It is emphasized that despite the fact that the term justice is widely used in scientific works and legislation, and in the Constitution of Ukraine the eighth chapter is called “Justice”, its concept and essence are not normatively defined, and scholars and interpretations of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine understand it differently, which creates certain problems. Although the Constitution of Ukraine has a separate section on justice, which is so called, but there is no normative definition of this concept here (as there is none in other normative acts), and if you analyze its content, it becomes obvious that it contains many things that is not identical with justice, and from these constitutional provisions it is difficult to understand the concept and essence of justice, so it is unclear why the legislator in Chapter Eight of the Constitution of Ukraine “Justice” included things relating to the proceedings, the judicial system, the organization of the judiciary, the legal status of judges and other entities, because although all this is closely linked to justice, it is not justice itself. Since the Constitution is the basic legal basis for all domestic law and legislation, such uncertainty and inconsistency regarding the concept of justice causes the corresponding legal consequences in the adoption of various regulations, as well as for research in this area. Both in the legislation and in the scientific definitions justice is considered as a type or branch of state activity, the function of the judiciary, as well as a certain system, sphere and so on. We consider it wrong to understand justice as a system, or a sphere, and what we use in the above cases as a system is not justice, but the judiciary, the concept of which is defined by law, and when it comes to the sphere of justice, then it would be correct to talk about the sphere of implementation of the judiciary. Justice can be considered as a branch of state activity, which is confirmed by paragraph 1 of article 3 of the above Resolution of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Having studied and analyzed the scientific opinions of various authors, the interpretation of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in its Resolution, as well as the use of the term “justice” in the Constitution of Ukraine and other normative acts, we note different understandings and interpretations of the concept and essence of justice by legislators, scholars and other entities, its identification with other important terms, which is unacceptable because it creates unnecessary terminological confusion, certain difficulties in theory and law enforcement, so we offer our own definition of justice and point to the need for its normative enshrinement in the Constitution of Ukraine by amending its eighth chapter, it is also proposed to change the very title “Justice” of this chapter to a more appropriate one (“Organization of the Judiciary” or “Judicial System, Justice and Proceedings”) to correspond to the content of all contained in this section.