THE CRITERIA OF DISTINGUISHING THE ELEMENTS OF THE STRUCTURE OF LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY

To determine the criteria of distinguishing the elements of the structure of legal responsibility, the author considered the structure of legal responsibility as an integral phenomenon. The structure of legal responsibility in a general way can be presented as a conglomerate of closely bound elements. The authors studied the criteria by which it is possible to structure legal liability. The analysis of various theoretical concepts and opinions of scientists showed the ambiguity of the approach to the quantitative and qualitative criteria to identify the elements of the structure of legal responsibility. The lack of the system approach is typical for all the criteria of distinguishing the elements of the structure of legal responsibility listed during the research. It is possible to solve this problem using a branch criterion. As a result of the research, the authors concluded that it is the most reasonable to use branch criterion to distinguish the elements of legal responsibility as it allows revealing the points of interaction and crossing of various manifestations of such diverse phenomenon as a legal responsibility. As the structural elements of legal responsibility, it is necessary to consider the legal responsibility subsystem formed by certain types of legal responsibility; the elements of system which are the subtypes of legal responsibility; the norms of legal responsibility representing the body of laws governing the public relations within the subsystem or an element of the legal responsibility system and defining the rules of conduct, principles, purposes, tasks, and definitions of a separate type of legal responsibility.