Actual legal relations: issues of individual judicial regulation

The category of legal relations in the domestic legal science is mainly considered in the spirit of the normative theory of law: the public attitude is subjected to the regularizing influence of the norms of law and turns into a legal relationship, the subjects of which are bound by subjective rights and legal obligations. However, in many cases, this scheme does not explain the specifics of the relationship that develops between the subjects, which is formed and actually exists, receiving a judicial assessment afterwards.

The purpose of the study is to develop scientifically based knowledge about the formation, content and functioning of actual legal relations and the specific role of individual judicial regulation in this. The objectives of the study are to identify the features of actual legal relations, to determine the role of individual judicial regulation in their fixation, to study legal situations in which the formation of actual legal relations takes place.

The work as a whole is based on the methodology of a scientifically based integrative understanding of law. The authors used methods of a general scientific nature (methods of formal logic, systemic, functional, historical methods) and private scientific methods of jurisprudence (formal legal, methods of interpretation of law).

The law, represented by the norms and principles contained in the multilevel system of forms of national and international law, does not just recognize certain social relations as legal, it regulates legal relations. In a number of cases, at the time of the emergence of a legal relationship, there is no proper certainty in the very fact of its existence. For example, this is possible in case of overcoming gaps in legal contracts and acts, in case of “abuse of law”. The authors also highlight situations with the realization of legal interests, overcoming legal conflicts. Such legal relations are factual. The legal assessment of the legal relationship is given in the decisions of the law enforcement bodies, among which judicial acts play a central and decisive role.

In the above cases, within the limits of individual judicial regulation, the fact of the existence of an actual legal relationship is revealed, as well as the scope of the rights and obligations of specific subjects in appropriate situations is determined.