The place of the constitutional legal liability of government among other forms of legal liability

Abstract

Problem setting. The article deals with general matters of constitutional liability of government, which has insufficient doctrine foundation and is not properly incorporated into legislation. Constitutional liability of government has complicated political nature which makes it difficult to distinguish this form of liability from political and kinds of legal liability. Recent research and publications analysis. Some aspects of constitutional legal liability of government were researched by Yu. Barabach, N. Batanova, N. Bobrova, O. Sovgiria, S. Serohina, Yu Todyka and others. But scientific researches of constitutional liability of government are fragmentary or deal with the analysis of political responsibility. Paper objective is to analyze approaches and establish features of constitutional responsibility of government, its place among kinds of legal liability. Paper main body. There are different some common features of constitutional and other forms of legal liability: negative assessment of delinquent’s behavior by the state; normative legal regulation; connection with state enforcement; execution by authorized bodies in accordance with special legal procedure. The research of governmental liability requires drawing a distinction between “positive” and “negative” forms of liability. The notion “positive legal liability” may be understood as conscientious attitude to duties, their correct discharge, as accountability (special relationship between subjects of constitutional law). This approach may lead to the problem of distinguishing constitutional and political
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responsibility of government. There are different views on the governmental responsibility: government bears only political responsibility; it can bear both political and constitutional liability; the liability of government as a separate type including features of political and constitutional liability. The main criterion for distinguishing these forms of responsibility is the reason – constitutional tort. Some of its features such as social danger (including its degree), illegality, culpability (it’s mentioned that culpability of collective subjects of constitutional liability differs from those of individual) and punishability are given. Conclusions of the research. On the bases of the concluded theoretical research of the problems of constitutional and legal liability attention is drawn to the fact that this form of liability is the mean guaranteeing legality, observance of constitutional principles, effective functioning of state apparatus.