FEATURES OF DISCRETION IN LEGAL PRACTICE OF THE STATES OF THE ROMANO-GERMANIC LEGAL FAMILY

The paper discusses general regularities affecting the discretion in law enforcement and law-making practice in the countries of the Romano-Germanic legal family. Factor analysis provides a detailed description of the most important laws related to the exercise of discretion in the law enforcement and law-making practice of the states of the specified legal family. In particular, the author draws attention to the dual nature of judicial rulemaking, the pronounced codified nature of legislation, the leading role of a normative legal act in the system of law sources, the presence of explicit conceptuality and doctrinality, and other essential factors. In comparison with the system of common law, the continental legal family is characterized by the significant influence of the works of legal scholars and the expressed and intense perception of legal doctrines and theories.  The author notes that the array of acts of interpretation significantly influences the uniformity of judicial practice in the continental legal system since this is a way to give flexibility to the legal regulation of public relations. Besides, the codifiers use a large number of scientifically based general provisions to formulate prescriptions, which are the main focus. The paper considers the fact that in the Romano-Germanic legal family, the lawyers regard as unacceptable the situation when the will of the judicial authorities determines the decisions made by the legislator since a traditionary one is a situation when the judicial authorities implement the will of the legislator. The author concludes that the rule of law is a consistent principle of the continental legal system. The paper states that scientific development should pay particular emphasis to the problems of law enforcement discretion. Thus, judicial discretion in law is most typical for the legal systems of the Anglo-Saxon legal family, and administrative discretion (the discretion of administrative jurisdiction) – for the Romano-Germanic legal family. The legal system developed in a particular state determines the general and specific regularities of exercising discretion in law practice.