Evolution of legal regulation of municipal service in the Republic of Lithuania and Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the formation and development of legislation on municipal service in the Republic of Lithuania. Individual factors that influenced the evolution of legal regulation of public service have been determined, in particular, the impact of adapting legislation to the requirements of the European Union at the stage of Lithuania's membership has been analyzed. The stages of the development of the legislation on the service have been singled out, the main novelties of the legal regulation of the institute under study at each of the stages have been analyzed. A conclusion has been made about a sufficiently centralized model of legal regulation, which provides for unified regulation of state and municipal service. Despite the fact that this model is determined by national characteristics, it is emphasized that the Republic of Lithuania successfully applies it in practice, and therefore the legislation in the field of municipal service is considered to be in line with European standards. The peculiarities of the formation of legislation on service in local self-government bodies in Ukraine have been also characterized. The trend of separating the mass of legal norms regulating the municipal service into a separate law has been determined, despite the similarity of the legal regulation of the state and municipal service, the identity of the methodological approach to the regulation of the relevant social relations, which has been repeatedly noted in the scientific literature. The consequences of the lag behind the reform of the legislation on service in local self-government bodies from the legislation on civil service have been given. Modern trends in the development of legal regulation of municipal service have been determined. A comparative legal analysis of the principles of municipal service in Lithuania, the current Law of Ukraine “On Service in Local Self-Government Bodies”, as well as the draft of the new law on service under consideration by the Parliament, has been conducted. It is concluded that a number of principles have already been taken into account in the current version, although in general the interpretation of the principles given in the researched project is more modern.