2018 Issue №4

The article focuses on different approaches to the definition of the legal state nature that has existed over time. The research is aimed at identifying the modern frames of the legal state that functions as a necessary counterbalance to the state monopoly on power and governance. The cope of research methodology is very wide, including the dialectic method of cognition, the methods of analysis and synthesis, and formally logical, historical legal and comparative legal methods. The result of the research that has been undertaken shall be the definition of the legal state, which is based on the rule of law, the recognition of law, the respect of law and the civil compliance with the law, as well as on the government’s ensuing the individual rights and freedoms.

The article justifies the need to clarify the true content of such a fundamental legal category as the “form of government”, since, so far, neither scientifically nor at the practical level, there hasn’t been given any unambiguous interpretation. The authors point to one of the typical conceptual errors in elucidating the content of this category, admitted by some legal theorists: the essence of the “form of government of the presidential republic” concept is interpreted with descriptors of a political state regime.