Dear colleagues!

I welcome you to the page of journal "Journal of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine", which for more than 20 years has been issued by the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine together with the Yaroslav the Wise National Law University.

The Academy was established in 1993 as the highest sectoral scientific institution in the field of law for the accumulation of creative potential of the leading scientific institutions and educational legal institutions of Ukraine, active participation in reforming the legal system, promoting legal regulation of socially oriented market relations, protecting human rights, ensuring equality of all before the law and the court, the deepening of the democratic principles of the functioning of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of power and the establishment of the supremacy of law.

After Ukraine gained independence, the Academy participated directly in the implementation of the most important legal reforms. This included the Constitution of Ukraine, criminal and civil legislation, the judicial and law enforcement system of Ukraine, national programs of investment activity, small business, training of civil servants. It also included the development of legal education and legal culture of the population, adaptation of legislation of Ukraine to the legislation of the European Union, prevention and fighting against crime, counteraction to the legalization of incomes received by criminal acts and corruption. Members of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine take an active part in the activities of scientific and advisory councils that work in the parliament and its committees, the higher court and the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine.

The Academy has acted as the organizer and co-organizer of more than 500 international, all-Ukrainian, regional conferences, seminars, “round tables” and other scientific events. The subject of discussion of these events were the most urgent issues of development of the national legislation. The most significant of these are the following: the Eastern European Forum on Legal Reform \"20 Years of the Constitution of Ukraine: European Legal Tradition and the Ukrainian Context - Measures of Legal Reform\", the First Kharkiv International Legal Forum \"The Law and Problems of Sustainable Development in a Globalized World\", the International Scientific and Practical Conference \"Constitutional Reform in Ukraine in the Area of Local Self-Government: Lessons from the Visegrad Four Countries\", Second Congress of the Association of Constitutional Justice of the Baltic Sea and Black Sea Regions (BBCJ): «The Role of Constitutional Courts in Interpreting the Provisions of National Constitutions in the Context of the Generally Recognized Principles and Norms of International Law, EU Law, Decisions of International Courts."

Since 1993, the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine published a collection of scientific works "Journal of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine." Since 2013 the scientific articles in Ukrainian and English are published in the collection. The purpose of the publication of the collection is to achieve an appropriate level of satisfaction of information needs in the field of law, development of the general theoretical problems of law making and law enforcement, studying the problems of the history of national state-building, the theory and practice of the state law of foreign countries and international law and coverage of the theoretical principles and applied aspects of the activities of state authorities and local self-government bodies. The collection contains scientific articles devoted to actual problems of jurisprudence: the theory and history of state and law, constitutional and state construction, civil, labor, financial, economic, administrative, customs, ecological, criminal law, criminal and civil processes, criminal investigations, etc. The Journal of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine is included in the international scientometric database Index Copernicus International (Warsaw, Poland).

The actual direction of the Academy's development is participation in joint European projects with leading universities of European countries. Thus, agreements on cooperation in the field of legal education and science with Vilnius State University, the University of Mykolas Romeris University (Vilnius, Lithuania), the University of Vytautas the Great (Kaunas Lithuania), the University of Nicolaus Copernicus (Torun, Poland), Lodz University (Lodz, Poland), Tallinn School of Law (Tallinn, Estonia) have been signed. In the nearest future it is expected that there will be cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania (USA), universities and research organizations of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

I hope that scientific and practical developments on topical theoretical and sectoral legal issues, law enforcement practice will be reflected on the pages of the Journal.

I invite everyone to cooperate!

Oleksandr Petryshyn
Chairman of the Editorial Board,
Doctor of Law, Professor,
Academician of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine