(2018) 4 Visn. Nac. akad. prokur. Ukr. 81–93
doi
Title of the article	Legal Argumentation: Redifining Approaches to Understanding
Author(s)	OLHA MINCHENKO PhD in Law, Docent, doctoral student, National Academy of Internal Affairs, Kyiv, Ukraine, olgaminchenko1004@gmail.com
Short title of the journal (ISSN)	Visn. Nac. akad. prokur. Ukr.
Year	2018
Issue	4
Pages	[81–93]
Language	Ukrainian
Abstract	Legal activity is fully related to linguistic acts (verbal or non-verbal). The essence of such linguistic acts is closely linked to the so-called argumentative practice in various spheres of legal work. The argumentative practice raises the problem of the authority of the law in general and the authority of decisions of law enforcement in particular. Given the importance of legal arguments, one should not underestimate its significance for Ukrainian legal education and science. The purpose of the article is to focus the attention of the legal community on the need to rethink the approach to understanding the legal argumentation. To achieve this purpose, it seems appropriate to solve the following tasks: 1) to analyze the state of scientific research on legal argumentation; 2) to highlight the peculiarities of understanding the legal argument in the spheres of education, science and law enforcement activities. As a result of the analysis, it has been established that the activity of a professional lawyer (regardless of the specialization and the content of his/her work) requires constant use of legal argumentation. The language of law is the basis of legal argumentation. In addition, the study of the language of law involves the question of the essence of law, with approaches to understanding of law – if the legal argumentation is valid from the standpoint of law that “does not keep pace with time”, does not correspond to the legal values and needs of real life (no matter how clearly, unambiguously, normatively, and emotionally neutral the legal decision was made), then the role of this decision would have no meaning. This is important in any activity: in the legislative – in particular, during the drafting of normative legal acts and the provision of scientific findings on them; in the scientific – for the formation of strategic plans, tasks, concepts, ways of development of society; in practical terms – when formulating a decision in a case, giving the opposite evidence and conducting court debates. It is in legal work that the proper legal argumentation of decisions of public authorities is an indicator of democracy, independence and impartiality of the court and, as a result, the rule of law.
Keywords	legal argumentation; law science; law education; law practice; law; rule of law.
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