POSSIBILITIES OF USING THE LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION OF THE POWERS OF THE SUBJECTS OF ENSURING THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF UKRAINE IN THE PAST TO IMPROVE THEM IN THE CONTEXT OF ITS EUROPEAN AND EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION

Abstract

The article makes a comparative analysis of current national legislation with the legal acts of Ukraine during its formation and development to determine the powers of the subjects to ensure the national security of Ukraine. It is found that in the current legal acts, unlike the legislation of 1991–2017, the subject of ensuring the national security of Ukraine still needs to be defined. Instead, they represent the security and defense sector of Ukraine and its constituent elements, as well as the areas in which they ensure the formation and implementation of the State policy and their powers. At the same time, there is a certain contradiction in the provisions of the current legal acts regarding the definition of state authorities and local self-government bodies as elements of the security and defense sector of Ukraine, as well as the attribution of the same state institutions to different components of the industry. This indicates the legislator’s inconsistency in defining the security and defense sector’s structural elements and raises doubts about their list’s logic and validity. The definition in the Law of Ukraine «On National Security of Ukraine» of the powers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine as a subject of the security and defense sector is also debatable. In particular, this concerns certain subordination of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and the National Guard to the MIA and entrusting this law enforcement agency with the functions of ensuring the formation of state policy in the areas within the competence of these state institutions. In the authors’ view, concentration (concentration) of a significant share of the state’s power bloc in one state institution, in this case, the MIA, and expansion of its powers under certain conditions may threaten the constitutional order. Based on this, they concluded that to improve the current legislation on defining the state policy on national security, it is advisable to determine the SBGS and the National Guard in the Law of Ukraine «On National Security» as independent subjects of the state policy on national security along with such a subject as the Security Service of Ukraine. At the same time, the National Guard should be subordinated to the Verkhovna Rada and the President of Ukraine, similar to the way it was done under the 1991 Law of Ukraine, and the necessary amendments should be made to ensure a clear definition of all subjects of national security, their powers and classification.