Concept and classification of legal acts: critical dimension

Modern encyclopedic, dictionarial and educational literature of Ukraine does not use the concept of "legal act", mixing its meaning with the coverage of other terms: "normative-legal act", "act juristic", "juristic act" and even "normative-juristic act". The analysis of existing theoretical and legal studies indicates that the concept of "legal acts" does not appear among the main concepts of legal theory. Such a reflection of this concept is an indicator of absence of a clear and unambiguous idea of the phenomenon of "legal act" in theoretical legal sphere, while even the generic concept of it (either it is a written document - or the word "act" should be understood as manifestation of certain activity or behavior) is considered debatable. In our opinion, only a dialectical understanding of law, revealed in the general doctrine of law, can provide productive approach to defining the concept of legal acts. Detailed studies of this phenomenon using formal-logical and systemic-structural methods in connection with the process of legal law-making allow us to assert that legal acts are special voluntary acts of the subjects, concerning formation and implementation of legal norms, in particular, juristic norms, being the necessary way of existence of legal norms. We distinguish three types of legal acts as elements of the process of legal law-making: norm-setting or legislative acts; norm-realizing acts, i.e. subordinate normative legal acts, which together with the first constitute "legislation"; norm-enforcement acts, which include: legal acts of subjects of specific legal relations and norm-affirming (public-authority) acts of application of legal law to the regulation of legal relations violated by illegal acts of subjects of such relations.

legal acts, norm-setting acts, norm-realizing acts, norm-enforcement acts, positive law, legal law-making