TYPES OF LEGAL NORMS OPERATION IN TIME

Abstract

Introduction: the article studies the typology of legal temporality. The changes, evolution, improvement of legal regulation of social relations objectively entail the problem of temporality of legal norms. Consequently, there arise issues of maximum protection for the participants in legal relations, of fair restoration of violated rights in a situation of legislative changes. Purpose: to describe the use of different types of law operation in time (prospective, retroactive, and ultra-active operation). Methods: the study was conducted on the basis of the general philosophical dialectical approach; a system of general scientific and special legal methods was used. The formal dogmatic method and the method of legal interpretation made it possible to clarify the content of the legislative rules on the operation of the law in time. The types of legal norms’ operation in time were identified as a result of combining the legal modeling method and a mental legal experiment. Results: the prospective and immediate effects of legal norms coincide in content and should be treated as identical. The application of the legal norms’ retroactivity is fundamentally different in the branches of public and private law. In private law relations, based on equality of participants, retroactivity of law does not apply to a new law improving the legal status of the legal relationship participants. Due to the absence of both doctrinal and law enforcement certainty regarding the understanding of the rights and obligations arising from, but later than, a relationship, the legislator should define as accurately as possible which rights and obligations fall under the ultra-active operation of an old law and which ones – under the prospective operation of a new law