Restriction of Citizens' Right to Public Service

The article deals with the provisions of Ukrainian and foreign legislation regarding the practice of exercise of the citizens’ constitutional right to equal access to public service. It has been established that the citizen’s right to public service is closely interrelated with legal status of public official, is universal and is enshrined not only in the Constitution and laws of Ukraine but also laws of other European states. Modern legal regulation of the citizens’ right to public service and grounds for restriction of this rights which are defined by international treaties, constitutions and other special laws on public service has been researched into. It has been identified that the citizens’ equal right to public service guaranteed by Art. 38 of the Constitution of Ukraine stipulates requirements to professional competence particularly general and special requirements to persons who want to start public service. They are as follows: citizenship of Ukraine, lawful age, fluency in the state language, higher education not lower than Master’s degree for positions of categories “A” and “B” or Bachelor’s, junior bachelor’s for positions of the category “B” and others. These requirements are defined not only by the Law of Ukraine ‘On Public Service’ (Articles 19 and 20) but other effective legislative acts and international treaties. It has been noted that legislator enshrined some restrictions of the citizens’ right to public service. It has been proved that this right is not absolute and is not included in the list of rights which cannot be restricted. It has been stated that persons who qualify for vacant positions have to comply with requirements which are established by legislation (age, legal capacity, clean record, no citizenship of another state, passing of a special check and agreement with it, not being a subject to the ban provided for by the law of Ukraine ‘On Lustration’ etc.). It has been concluded that restrictions of the citizens’ right to public service are not discriminative and comply with international human rights standards.