STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE PROFESSIONAL LEGAL AWARENESS OF JUDGES: A THEORETICAL AND LEGAL DIMENSION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66556/2522-4549.47.bazarnyk-m1Keywords:
professional legal awareness, judge, structure of legal awareness, functions of legal awareness, legal ideology, legal psychology, legal nihilism, European integration, judicial reform, judicial corpsAbstract
The article provides a comprehensive theoretical and legal analysis of the structure and functions of the professional legal awareness of judges as an independent object of scientific inquiry. The relevance of the topic is determined by the fact that, amid the ongoing judicial reform and Ukraine's European integration aspirations, not only the institutional renewal of the judicial system but also the qualitative transformation of the subjective component of justice – the legal awareness of judges – acquires particular importance. The purpose of the study is to systematize the existing theoretical approaches to defining the structure of a judge's legal awareness, to substantiate the expediency of expanding its traditional three-component composition, and to identify the functions that correspond to the proposed structural elements. The methodological basis comprises general scientific and specialized legal methods: dialectical, systemic-structural, comparative-legal, and hermeneutical. It has been demonstrated that the traditional model, which reduces the structure of legal awareness to legal ideology, legal psychology, and legal behaviour, is insufficient for characterizing the specificity of judicial activity. The necessity of including three additional elements – subjects of formation and development of legal awareness, the level of legal nihilism, and the influence of the foreign policy vector of state policy – has been substantiated. Accordingly, it is proposed to expand the list of functions of legal awareness by supplementing the generally recognized cognitive, evaluative, and regulatory functions with communicative, harmonizing, resistance, and legal-educational ones. An original definition of the concept of "professional legal awareness of a judge" has been formulated as a dynamic socio-psychological construct partially regulated by the norms of judicial law. The findings may be applied to improve the regulatory framework for the formation of the judicial corps, training of judges, and development of curricula at the National School of Judges of Ukraine.References
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