The reform that didn't happen: on the issue of legislative support for the development of local self-government

The article reflects the author's position regarding the directions of reforming the legislation of Ukraine in the field of local self-government. The domestic history of the formation and development of municipal power demonstrates the legislator's constant attention to its regulation, which, among other things, is evidenced by numerous changes to the basic law and sectoral legislation regulating the competence of local self-government bodies in various spheres of the local economy. The modern doctrine of municipal law emphasizes the need for full implementation of international and European standards in the organization of municipal power, taking into account the experience and best practices of the activities of territorial collectives of developed democracies, forming a new methodology for the distribution of powers based on the principles of subsidiary and optimal decentralization. However, the latest changes to the legislation of Ukraine testify to various approaches in understanding the nature of municipal power, its autonomy and the responsibility of bodies exclusively to the territorial community. The current state of regulatory and legal regulation in its substantive component preserves the narratives and theoretical models of individual institutions of municipal power formed even before our state gained independence. National regulation, acts of local self-government bodies contain a fairly significant number of norms that testify to «Soviet» approaches in the organization of local government, secondary importance in the exercise of power by municipal structures compared to other institutions of public power. The author analyzed the current norms of municipal law, which were preserved after 1997 and are a normative part of the Law of Ukraine «On Local Self-Government in Ukraine». The position is substantiated that these «delayed changes in the legislation can be characterized as a normative barrier in the development of municipal-legal relations in the process of formation of democratic institutions of modern Ukraine, autonomy and partnership relations between structures of civil society, local self-government and the state. The purpose of the article is to analyze the theoretical models of the organization of certain institutions of municipal law existing in the municipal legal reality, which were implemented during the organization of local government during the Soviet era of statehood development and «are automatically embedded in the modern legislation of a democratic state. The author conducts a study of the outlined objects in view of their negative impact on the establishment of municipal government in Ukraine and the need to adjust legislation by eliminating blocking norms and introducing modern models. The justification is carried out with the help of methods of distinguishing a single legal phenomenon from general, quantitative and qualitative indicators, comparing legal institutions of the past and present in foreign countries and in Ukraine, outlining the patterns of negative impact of existing norms on the organization and activity of local self-government bodies in assessing their democracy and efficiency, as well as theoretical modeling of new institutions in the municipal law of the modern state. The obtained research results will be used in the rule-making activities of the Parliament of Ukraine and representative bodies of local self-government for the formation of a powerful institution of public power that will fully meet international and European standards.

reform of local self-government; local self-government bodies; territorial community; decentralization of power; institution of municipal law