Legal Regulation of Forms of a Territorial Community's Direct Participation in Solving Local Issues

Legal regulation of forms of direct participation of a territorial community in solving local issues occurs at three levels: constitutional, legislative and subordinate.

It is advisable to consolidate, at the constitutional level, the following main forms of participation of the territorial community in addressing issues of local importance, such as general citizens' meeting at the place of residence, local initiatives and public hearings. This will be an important guarantee of the right of territorial communities to address local issues directly, as well as facilitate the normative regulation of these forms at the local level and broadly introduce them into the practice of local self-government.

It is expedient to include the legal regulation of the mentioned forms in the international legal treaties, the consent of which is binding on the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and the laws of Ukraine, to the legislative level.

The main legislative and regulatory act is the Law of Ukraine "On Local Self-Government in Ukraine". At the legislative level, only the basic principles and the guarantees of implementation of separate forms of direct participation of the territorial community in the decision of issues of local importance should be determined, and not exhaustively regulated the order of their organization and holding. The optimal level of legal regulation of the general meeting of citizens at the place of residence is the special law, local initiatives and public hearings - the by-law level.

To the sub-legal level of legal regulation of the forms of direct participation of the territorial community in resolving issues of local importance, it is expedient to include the legal regulation of the mentioned forms in sub-legal normative acts, mainly in the municipal-legal. Legal regulation of the forms of direct participation of the territorial community in solving local issues in subordinate regulatory legal acts of state authorities seems inappropriate, as territorial communities should be granted autonomy in resolving internal organizational issues of their activities.

Legal regulation of the procedure for implementing forms of direct involvement of the territorial community in resolving issues of local significance at the subordinate level, namely in the statutes of territorial communities, is justified. Territorial communities have the right to decide organizational issues themselves on the implementation of individual forms of direct involvement of the territorial community in addressing issues of local importance. The statutes of territorial communities in this aspect are more dynamic compared to the laws, there is a possibility of promptly making changes to them in connection with the development of social relations, the introduction of new forms. In addition, the drafting of the statutes takes into account historical, national-cultural, socio-economic and other peculiarities of the implementation of local self-government in a particular territorial community.