To the Issue of the Legal Status of the National Bank of Ukraine

The article deals with the study on the legal status of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on the basis of the current Ukrainian legislation. The relevance of the article is determined by the extremal importance of the state financial activity bodies and outdated scientific works on the issue studied because of the change of the relevant legal norms. The author reveals the historical and legal aspects of the central banks’ functioning in general and the Ukrainian central banks, in particular, and concludes that the NBU is a state central bank created by the world-wide practice of building a two-tier banking system succeeding with similar bodies in the historical dimension. The basis of the study is the selection and classification of the (1) functions, (2) competencies, (3) structures of the National Bank of Ukraine and 4) distribution of powers of the NBU between its governing bodies on the basis of the current legislation of Ukraine (in particular, the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine "On the National Bank of Ukraine", the Statute of the NBU) and scientific papers. The author substantiates that the NBU has a dual nature, combining administrative and managerial and property-economic elements; carries out in particular realization, accounting, constituent, supervisory functions, analysis function; has a centralized structure with a vertical subordination. The article analyzes the distribution of power between the Board, the Council and the Chairman of the NBU in detail. The author notes that, in general, the Council of the NBU produces general and theoretical guidelines for the activities of the NBU and the banking system as a whole; The Board of the NBU manages its operations; The Chairman of the NBU performs representative functions and bears personal responsibility for the NBU’s activities. NBU’s independent position in the system of state bodies is important for determining the peculiarities of the legal status of the National Bank of Ukraine. The author states that the peculiarities of the legal status of the NBU provide a mechanism of checks and balances both at the internal (the NBU's governing bodies) and on the external (state apparatus) levels; make it impossible to usurp the regulation of the financial sector by the executive bodies or the legislature; provide an effective mechanism for legal regulation and management of the financial sector. As a conclusion, the author justifies that the NBU has a special, unambiguously undetermined legal status; acts as an independent state body and legal entity of public law; is the subject of constitutional, administrative, civil, and economic legal relations.