PUBLIC INTEREST WITHIN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: INITIAL POSITIONS OF DOCTRINAL UNDERSTANDING AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION (ACCORDING TO THE LEGISLATION OF UKRAINE AND KAZAKHSTAN)

Purpose. The article’s purpose is an attempt to analyse the category of “public interest” in terms of doctrinal understanding and practical application in the sphere of public administration. Methods. The research methodology consists of various methods of scientific cognition, including comparative and legal, systematic and structural, analysis, synthesis and others that make it possible to systematically and consistently to solve scientific problems, to study and compare the points of view of scholars, provisions of legal acts of the corresponding countries, caselaw and to formulate the author’s conclusions. Results. The author of the article considers the public interest through the historical prism and concludes that this category was used as a “convenient screen” in Soviet times in order to restrict the rights of individuals, which does not allow us to refer to previously obtained scientific results to substantiate current tendencies in this field. Considerable attention of the work is focused on searching the universal definition of the category of “public interest”. The author criticizes the existing approaches to this issue, especially emphasizing that the quantitative indicators of the bearers of a particular interest cannot be a sufficient ground for classifying any of them as the public interest. Among other things the author of the article emphasizes that the system of public interests cannot be constant and unchanging. It is formed under the influence of various factors and therefore, it has to be revised from time to time. However, the state must be concerned about the stability of public interests and prevent their unjustified narrowing and / or expansion. The author also pays attention to the issue of alternative points of view on the scope of public interests within modern countries, while appealing to the authors of the libertarian concept of the state. This concept, in his view, is to some extent used by judicial authorities, who decide cases of competition between human rights and the public interest that confirms its viability. The author of the paper also emphasizes that the public interest is a constitutional value that allows it to compete with other constitutional values (for example, fundamental human rights and freedoms) and to have priority over values that are enshrined in laws and by-laws. Conclusions. An important aspect of the paper is to formulate the conditions, when restrictions on human rights and freedoms are allowed, with the reference to the need to ensure the public interest, which, in the author’s opinion, is the “secondary” value in a modern democratic and rule of law country.