CITY GOVERNMENT IN UKRAINE AT THE END OF THE XX – BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURIES

Abstract

Municipal government in Ukraine has quite long historical roots. It is an important factor in further improving self-government in general, as well as the life of territorial communities of cities. After all, the majority of Ukraine’s population lives in cities. As for Ukraine, it should be noted that truly democratic local self-government began to form only at the end of the twentieth century. In this regard, an important practical task is to further improve the system of municipal self-government, and an important theoretical task is the proper doctrinal support of this process. The aim of the article is to analyze the formation of modern urban self-government in Ukraine in the late XX – early XXI centuries. The Law of the Ukrainian SSR of December 7, 1990 “On Local Councils of People’s Deputies of the Ukrainian SSR and Local Self-Government” was repeatedly amended and supplemented (including its name), and was in force until the current Law “On Local Councils of People’s Deputies of the Ukrainian SSR and Local Self-Government in Ukraine”. For the longest time, the 1990 Law was entitled “On Local Councils of People’s Deputies and Local and Regional Self-Government”, the relevant amendments were made on March 26, 1992, at which time the Law was reworded. Local self-government in terms of its organization in general and organizational and legal form in particular has undergone only minor changes since the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine in 1996 and the update of the codified law on local self-government. The biggest changes concerned the conceptual approach to the place of this institution in society – since the mid-1990s, it is no longer considered an institution of state power, but has become increasingly characterized as an institution of civil society, the functioning of which is guaranteed by the state. Most Ukrainian municipal law experts believe that public power in Ukraine is represented by two types: state power and local self-government (municipal power).