Procedural guarantees for the exercise of freedom of association in the context of international standards of legal certainty

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to clarify how the procedural guarantees for the exercise of freedom of association are related to international standards of legal certainty and how these standards affect the procedure for the creation, operation, control, restriction and judicial protection of associations. Freedom of association is considered as a right that requires predictable administrative procedures, motivated decisions of authorities, limited discretion and an accessible appeal mechanism. The research methods cover formal-legal, system-structural, comparative-legal and interpretative approaches. The formal-legal method was used to analyze international treaties, acts of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the European Union and the national legislation of Ukraine. The system-structural approach made it possible to combine the material content of freedom of association with the procedural requirements for its implementation. The comparative-legal method was used to compare universal and regional standards, and the interpretative approach was used to analyze the practice of the European Court of Human Rights and documents of the Venice Commission. Results. International standards of freedom of association have a dual legal content. On the one hand, they fix the minimum scope of rights, freedoms and positive obligations of the state, and on the other hand, they set the criteria of due process, without which the formal proclamation of the right does not ensure its practical implementation. The expediency of classifying such standards by form of expression, subjects of establishment, scope, legal force, functions in the regulatory mechanism and the degree of certainty of the content is substantiated. It is specified that procedural standards include requirements for transparency of registration, clarity of grounds for refusal or interference, reasonableness of deadlines, motivation of administrative acts, proportionality of sanctions and effectiveness of legal remedies. Conclusions. Procedural guarantees constitute an independent level of ensuring freedom of association, since it is through them that international standards acquire applied significance in the national legal order. For Ukraine, this is important in the context of implementing international treaties, taking into account the practice of the ECHR, adapting to European standards and improving the procedures for registration, control, termination of activities and appeals against decisions related to citizens' associations.