El sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social: estructura y perspectivas de desarrollo Vitalii Kharchenko 1 , Serhii Dmytriiev 2 , Olha Koshova 3 , Andrii Tomchuk 4 , Yevhenii Kaluhin 5 1 Scientiﬁc Institute of Public Law, Ukraine. E-mail: ventavh@gmail.com; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8277-504X 2 Scientiﬁc Institute of Public Law, Ukraine. E-mail: serg_dmitriev@icloud.com; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5515-2951 3 Scientiﬁc Institute of Public Law, Ukraine. E-mail: olha.koshova@icloud.com; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4691-8242 4 Scientiﬁc Institute of Public Law, Ukraine. E-mail: tomchuka@gmail.com; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9084-9822 5 Scientiﬁc Institute of Public Law, Ukraine. E-mail: Fill0001k@gmail.com; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0217-992X Resumen. El objetivo del estudio es evaluar los enfoques cientíﬁcos para la in- terpretación del sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social, delinear su estructura y determinar las perspectivas de desarrollo. Los métodos de investigación incluyen análisis y síntesis, inducción y deducción, generalización, análisis sistemático y explicación, que es la base para un estudio exhaustivo de los temas discutidos. La hipótesis supone que el sistema de aplicación de la ley en Ucrania es un fenómeno social estructurado, cada componente del cual desempeña un papel funcional en la protección de los derechos, libertades y bienes públicos individuales. La conclusión señala que la estructura de los organismos encargados de hacer cumplir la ley, aunque compleja, es comprensible en el contexto social. Su principal ﬁnalidad social se im- plementa a través de procedimientos de protección que proporcionan una transición lógica de las relaciones jurídicas protectoras a las acciones ejecutivas directas. Estas fun- ciones, realizadas por un grupo deﬁnido de personas, son jurídicamente signiﬁcativas y actúan como el eslabón ﬁnal de la cadena de «establecimiento, prestación, implemen- tación y protección». Además, son socialmente necesarios, aseguran el mantenimiento Recibido: 29/01/2025 ~ Aceptado: 25/07/2025 INTERACCIÓN Y PERSPECTIVA Revista de Trabajo Social ISSN 2244-808X ~ Dep. Legal pp 201002Z43506 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16915539 Vol. 15 (3): 832 - 842 pp, 2025

El sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social: estructura y perspectivas de desarrollo 833 Vol. 15(3) julio - diciembre 2025/ 832 - 842 Law enforcement system as a social phenomenon: structure and prospects of development Abstract. e study aims to assess scientiﬁc approaches to interpreting the law enforcement system as a social phenomenon, outline its structure, and identify future development prospects. e research methods include analysis and synthe- sis, induction and deduction, generalization, systematic analysis, and explanation, providing a basis for a thorough examination of the issues discussed. e hypothesis suggests that the law enforcement system of Ukraine is a structured social phenom- enon, with each component playing a functional role in protecting individual rights, freedoms, and public goods. e conclusion notes that the law enforcement struc- ture, though complex, is understandable within a social context. Its primary social purpose is realized through protection procedures, enabling a logical transition from protective legal relations to direct enforcement actions. ese functions, carried out by a deﬁned group of individuals, are legally signiﬁcant, serving as the ﬁnal link in the chain of «establishment, provision, implementation, and protection.» Further- more, they are socially necessary, ensuring the maintenance of law and order. e study highlights that building a true legal state requires long-term optimization and structural improvements. Keywords: social justice, law enforcement system, principles, law enforcement agencies, court, law enforcement relations, law, law enforcement function, social phenomenon. INTRODUCTION e issue of the state, its concept, essence and role in society belongs to the circle of the most relevant and debatable in modern legal science. is is due to a number of reasons, among which the following can be singled out: 1) they directly aﬀect the interests of various layers of society, po- litical parties and movements; 2) no other organization can compete with the state in the variety of assigned tasks and functions, in inﬂuencing the fate of society; 3) the state is a complex and inter- nally contradictory socio-political phenomenon (Byelov, 2020). us, as a form of organization of society, the state is designed to ensure its integrity and control, to perform functions determined by the needs of society, and therefore to serve its interests (Byelov, Shved & Byelova, 2023). e state establishes legal boundaries within which the law enforcement network and its bod- ies operate, including legislative acts governing this operation, powers, duties and procedures. In addition, the state is responsible for creating and maintaining the institutional scheme of the law enforcement system, which includes the police, prosecutor’s oﬃce, courts, investigative services and other bodies. It provides funding, training, logistics and other resources necessary for the eﬀective del orden público. El estudio enfatiza que la construcción de un verdadero Estado de derecho requiere optimización y mejoras estructurales a largo plazo. Palabras clave: justicia social, sistema de aplicación de la ley, principios, organismos encargados de hacer cumplir la ley, tribunales, relaciones policiales, derecho, función policial, fenómeno social.

834 Kharchenko, Dmytriiev, Koshova, Tomchuk, Kaluhin Interacción y Perspectiva. Revista de Trabajo Social Vol. 15(3): 2025 operation of these bodies. e state is also responsible for the formation and implementation of policy in the law enforcement area, including the development of strategies to ﬁght crime, prevent oﬀenses, and defend individuals’ rights and freedoms. An important aspect of the state’s role is also providing transparency and accountability of law enforcement agencies, monitoring their function- ing, which guarantees compliance with the law and protection of human rights. erefore, the state plays a key role in the formation of an eﬀective, fair and democratic law enforcement system that meets the needs of society and ensures the maintenance of law and order and security in the country. erefore, we suggest that the law enforcement system of Ukraine is a social phenomenon that reﬂects the current state of the formed relationships between the state and society in the context of the existing public demand for a safe social environment and balancing the balance of social justice. ANALYSIS OF RECENT RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS In the modern world, there is a signiﬁcant number of texts, monographs, articles, etc., dedicated to systems and systems theory. For example, in philosophy it is noted that a system should be consid- ered a whole complex formation, the internal relations between the components of which are much more intense than between these elements and the environment (Petrushenko, 2011; Yednak, 2020). e sociological theory of systems uses the term “social system”. At the same time, the theory of law uses concepts such as “legal system” and “system of law”, which are basic concepts in jurisprudence. erefore, from the point of view of specialists in the theory of law, the term “system” must be seen as a certain integral phenomenon consisting of interconnected and interacting component. As V. Yednak notes, when clarifying the essence of the system of state bodies, it should be borne in mind that the structural components of such a system will be such bodies, and the peculiarities of their hierarchical structure should be considered as a connection of the components of such a system (Yednak, 2020). Scientists such as V. Hrytsenko, K. Malyshev, O. Markeeva, and others use the ﬁrst attitude when formulating the concept of law enforcement structure. For example, V. Hrytsenko notes that the law enforcement system of Ukraine is an structured network of state and non-state agencies, specialized state institutions, means, methods and guarantees aimed at protecting social relations, individuals’ rights, liberties and concerns from illegal actions (Hrytsenko, 2015). Instead, K. Maly- shev proposed a more detailed deﬁnition, focusing on the system of State authorities whose activi- ties are related to realizing law enforcement function. us, the scholar conventionally divided the totality of the speciﬁed bodies into several subsystems, namely: the managing (regulation, develop- ment of state-management decisions and other measures regarding the State administration of law enforcement activities) and managed (specially authorized State management actors performing law enforcement activities through the application preventive, coercive, legal, force and other measures of inﬂuence on social relations, which are governed by relevant rules), the functioning of which is connected with implementing state security, public order protection, prevention and counteraction of crime as the basis of protection of public, public and private interests legalized in the legal system (Malyshev, 2020).e representatives of the second approach are, for example, A. Bilas, T. Pikulya, and A. Kulish. e latter claims that the law enforcement system is a comprehensive social system characterized by integrity, interdependence of the system and the environment, hierarchy, and emer- gency. e author formulated the term of the law enforcement system as a multi-layered social sys- tem, consisted of legal tools, technics and guarantees that ensure the defense of social relations from illegal encroachments, and State agencies implementing law enforcement functions (Kulish, 2009).

El sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social: estructura y perspectivas de desarrollo 835 Vol. 15(3) julio - diciembre 2025/ 832 - 842 Other components are cited by A. Bilas and T. Pikul. us, A. Bilas claims that the law enforce- ment system contains six aspects: law enforcement objective, actors, objects, protective legal rules, operation, and relations (Bilas, 2016). In turn, T. Pikulya notes that law enforcement activities are performed by law enforcement actors within security legal relations grounded on law enforcement system principles, in particular: legality; everything that is not allowed is forbidden; the inevitabil- ity of punishment; reconciliation of private and public interests; democracy; systematicity; multiple options for solving problems of legal protection of social relations; respect for human dignity, rights, liberties and interests (Pikulia, 2004). Some authors reveal the legal system through objects of inﬂuence/defense. For example, A. Movchan believes that the concept of “human rights protection system” is the most crucial element of the notion of “law enforcement system”, where the object of protection is not only human rights, but also the law itself, as well as other components of the legal scheme, but always human rights remain one of the main objects of protection (Dudchenko, 2019). According to V. Hrytsenko, the protection of human rights is a task, not a characteristic feature of the legal system. Among these, the author includes: 1) protection of the constitutional order, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state; 2) defense of rights, liberties and interests of individuals, legal entities, society and the state in general; 3) combating crime; 4) purposeful improvement of the law enforcement system. is enabled to divide the law enforcement system of Ukraine roles into: a) crucial ones: protective (law enforcement); operative and investigative; prophylactic; investigation of crimes; executive; ad- ministrative; b) auxiliary: organizational and managerial; coordination; control; informational and analytical (Hrytsenko, 2015). Consequently, the aim of the law enforcement system is to provide the maximum possible level of law and order in society. In this context, the scholar stresses that com- mon principles of the law enforcement system are: 1) the principle of social justice; 2) the principle of democracy; 3) the principle of humanism and equality; 4) the principle of the rule of law; 5) the principle of legality. Speciﬁc concepts of the law enforcement structure include the following: 1) the principle of publicity; 2) the principle of interaction with state authorities; 3) normativity; 4) obligation; 5) complexity (Hrytsenko, 2015). e analysis of the given opinions indicates the diversity of methods to deﬁning the law en- forcement system, which indicates its complexity and multifacetedness, in particular from a social point of view. Researchers such as V. Hrytsenko, K. Malyshev and others believe that the law en- forcement system as a set of agencies protecting social relations providing the defense of the citi- zens’ rights and freedoms. At the same time, the authors, in particular A. Kulish and T. Pikulya, emphasize the systemic character and interrelatedness of the law enforcement system components, stressing the relevance of legal rules, institutions and functions that ensure its functioning. Another important aspect is that scholars pay attention to diﬀerent elements of the law enforcement system. is actualizes the expediency of conducting a systematic analysis of scientiﬁc views on the nature of the law enforcement system as a social phenomenon that will allow not only to better understand its structure, but also to identify key problems and prospects for development. MATERIALS AND METHODS In order to ensure obtaining relevant and reliable data during the conduct of this research, a combination of various scientiﬁc methods is necessary, which will contribute to the disclosure of the raised issues comprehensively and comprehensively. First, the method of analysis and synthe-

836 Kharchenko, Dmytriiev, Koshova, Tomchuk, Kaluhin Interacción y Perspectiva. Revista de Trabajo Social Vol. 15(3): 2025 sis will allow considering the components of the law enforcement system both separately and in their interaction, which will contribute to a deeper understanding of its social nature, structure and principles of functioning. Secondly, the method of induction and deduction should ensure the formation of theoretical generalizations on the basis of conducted scientiﬁc investigations, which will allow to move from the study of speciﬁc facts to general conclusions and vice versa. e combination of these two methods implies a multi-level research, because it organically high- lights the aspects of the speciﬁc, which turns into the general and the general, which becomes speciﬁc. irdly, the method of generalization will contribute to the formulation of conclusions conﬁrmed by empirical data and analysis of scientiﬁc sources, because it ensures the systemati- zation and integration of information collected during the research, which, in turn, will allow the formation of well-founded conclusions. Fourthly, the system analysis method will form a comprehensive view of the law enforcement system operation as a social phenomenon in general, which allows to assess its complexity and relationships with other components of the legal system. Fifth, the method of explanation will provide an opportunity to reveal the essence of the studied phenomena in detail, which is critically important for a deeper understanding of the complex as- pects of the law enforcement system. Sixth, the formal-legal method and the method of legal rules explanation will be useful in the analysis of legislative doctrine, as they allow a detailed study of the structure and essence of legal rules, and application in real conditions. Seventh, the axiomatic method will allow not to reveal the self-evident processes and principles that form the basis of law enforcement system operation. Accordingly, both quantitative and qualitative approaches should be applicable in order to cover the multifaceted nature of the studied phenomena. e legislative doctrine of Ukraine, scientiﬁc publications revealing the foundations and concepts of law enforcement system opera- tion, as well as analytical data explaining individual processes in the context of law enforcement agencies activities and the course of social processes within its limits should serve as materials for analysis. RESEARCH RESULTS It should be agreed that the law enforcement system by its characteristics is a mechanical scheme, but, serving as a component of the state-legal system, it is part of an organic network. Considering this, evolution of the law enforcement system takes on a contradictory nature, and its behavior in the conditions of reform is diﬃcult to predict. For the same reason, the consequences of restructuring the law enforcement system for operating and development of the state legal system in general and its individual elements organically related to law enforcement are not always predictable (Kovaliv, Yesimov & Lozynskyi, 2018). We assume that its crucial structural components are: 1) law enforcement bodies; 2) law en- forcement operation; 3) law enforcement role; 4) law enforcement aﬀairs. Considering this, we can say that law enforcement bodies are one of the key aspects of the law enforcement network. However, regarding their deﬁnition and the state structures that belong to them, there is currently no unequivocal answer. Based on the analysis of monographic studies, it is possible to single out the main features describing law enforcement bodies, namely:

El sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social: estructura y perspectivas de desarrollo 837 Vol. 15(3) julio - diciembre 2025/ 832 - 842 • jurisdictional - the ability to resolve disputes out of court, for example, to bring to adminis- trative responsibility. Yes, according to Article 255 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Oﬀenses, the State Bureau of Investigation has the right to draw up protocols for the com- mission of administrative oﬀenses provided for in Article 184-3 (in terms of illegal use of the name and signs of belonging to the State Bureau of Investigation) and Article 185-13 (in terms of failure to comply with legal requirements of oﬃcials of the State Bureau of Investigation); • functional - includes a wide range of tasks (from protecting law and order to defending the citizens’ rights and state security. So, for example, the functions of the prosecutor’s oﬃce in- clude monitoring the development of laws, supporting the state’s prosecution in court, judicial representation; State Bureau of Investigation -prevention, detection, cessation, revealing and investigation of crimes that fall within its competence; judicial authorities - judicial protection of breached and contested rights of individuals in the way of administration of justice; • institutional independence means personal autonomy, which is ensured by the power through a system of guarantees of non-interference in its activities. e Law of Ukraine “On the State Bureau of Investigation” under Article 4 securing guarantees of the independence of this body, establishing that: “the illegal transfer of state bodies, local self-government bodies, their local and service individuals, political parties, and public bodies is protected data on other physical or legal characteristics of the activities of the State Investigation Bureau” (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 2015). A similar norm has also been established for the activities of judicial authorities. In particular, Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges” prohibits interfering with the justice administration, inﬂuencing the court or judges in any way, disrespecting the court or judges, collecting, storing, using and disseminating infor- mation in any form with the aim of causing harming the authority of judges or aﬀecting the impartiality of the court (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 2016). We are impressed by the idea that law enforcement agencies are jurisdictional bodies, which, according to the current legislation, are authorized to provide law and order, defend the rights and liberties of people and citizens, to prevent and stop crimes, as well as to apply state coercion to the perpetrators, and the system of law enforcement agencies is a set of specialized State bodies, united by functional criteria, which in cooperation carry out the protection and defense of main individu- als’ rights, freedoms and interests, combating crime and other oﬀenses (Yusupov, 2015 ). us, the legal discourse determines that law enforcement bodies as a component of the law enforcement system, on the one hand, are endowed with autonomy, which is guaranteed by the state by establishing a ban on interference in their functioning, and on the other one, law enforce- ment bodies are functionally united, because they all perform law enforcement tasks, interacting both among themselves and with other institutions. From a social standpoint, they represent the institutional structures, which appeals to or respond to the facts of deviations in the course of social processes are a guarantee of the practical eﬀectiveness of the established standards for ensuring law and order. IN. Makarchuk stresses that law enforcement bodies should have the inherent ability to ef- fectively inﬂuence various aspects of the country’s security from the standpoint of functional unity, which will allow them to strategically and functionally solve issues of national security and defense of Ukraine (Makarchuk, 2023). However, there is also another position, according to which law enforcement bodies can be not only state, but also non-state agencies.

838 Kharchenko, Dmytriiev, Koshova, Tomchuk, Kaluhin Interacción y Perspectiva. Revista de Trabajo Social Vol. 15(3): 2025 In particular, according to the authors of the textbook “Jurisprudence”, law enforcement op- eration is activity by competent actors of state and non-state organizations and their oﬃcials in the consideration of legal cases, protection and defense of social relations from oﬀenses and adoption of special acts of implementation of material legal norms in order to ensure legality and protection of law and order (Kopyeychikov, 2003). An example of this is the activity of private detective agencies that work successfully in many democratic countries. In Ukraine, a discussion regarding the legalization of such activities has been going on for a long time. us, in 2020, draft law No. 3562-IX “On private detective activity” was adopted. In it, the authors proposed to establish that private detective activity is aimed at defending individuals’ and legal entities’ rights and interests by providing private detective services (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 2020). It is also necessary to emphasize that non-state actors of law enforcement activities can be included in the law enforcement system of the state, but cannot belong to the system of law enforcement bodies, since they do not have a jurisdictional sign and institutional independence. erefore, as A. Tyurina rightly pointed out, the system-forming factor in this case is law en- forcement operation, for which the State creates law enforcement agencies (Tyurina, 2006). Conse- quently, the next component that needs consideration is law enforcement. A fairly common term of law enforcement operation is as follows: it is a state activity performed for defending law by empowered agencies through speciﬁc tools of inﬂuence according to law and in compliance with the established procedures (Bandurka, 1999). e central categories that reﬂect its essence are: the object of protection and the actor of law enforcement activity. us, the object of protection is social relations, which are regulated by law and which can potentially or actually be harmed. Instead, law enforcement activities actor is illegal acts (misdemeanors and crimes), and also indirectly there may be other legal and social phenomena that determine them or connected with them (for example, identifying the causes of oﬀenses or prevention of oﬀenses) (Tyurina, 2006). Law enforcement activities are mainly implemented in diﬀerent types of law enforcement ac- tions, namely law-establishing, law-enforcing, law-compulsory and law-restoring. Structurally, the system of law enforcement activities covers: 1) operation of state bodies for organizational support of the activities of judicial authorities; 2) activities of the prosecutor’s oﬃce in the performance of the tasks assigned to them (maintenance of the State prosecution in court, the function of represen- tation and supervisory functions); 3) activities to detect, prevent and investigate criminal oﬀenses; 4) actions for protecting State security, the State border, law and order (National Academy of Inter- nal Aﬀairs, 2024). us, law enforcement activity as a multi-component operation is directed by various state means of a political and administrative nature with the aim of preventing and countering the com- mission of oﬀenses consisting of the object and subject of this activity. Its social context presupposes the existence of a system of such means, which are perceived by society either as a measure of neces- sary intervention in the private life of a person to secure collective security (protecting public good), or as a set of repressive measures (mostly precisely such), the need for which is signiﬁcantly exagger- ated. We believe that this component of the law enforcement system demonstrates the necessity to ensure a proper balance between the eﬀectiveness of law enforcement and the observance of human rights in its incorporation.

El sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social: estructura y perspectivas de desarrollo 839 Vol. 15(3) julio - diciembre 2025/ 832 - 842 To highlight the subject of the research, it is necessary to ﬁnd out which law enforcement structures are directly related to the provision of adequate functioning of the law enforcement sys- tem. As V. Makarchuk rightly pointed out, there are State agencies that do not belong to law en- forcement, but are endowed with law enforcement functions and directly inﬂuence establishing and incorporating of State policy in the sphere of providing national security and defense of our country (Makarchuk, 2023). erefore, in order to answer the question which State bodies belong to law enforcement, perform law enforcement tasks, and, consequently, belong to the law enforcement network, let’s examine the next component - the law enforcement function. e law enforcement function is the leading one in the system of internal functions of the State and provides guaranteed defense of the citizens’ rights and freedoms through the establishment of an eﬀective legal order, ensuring legality, protection of sovereignty, territorial integrity, national security and the State border (Kolomiiets, 2017). According to S. Ostrovskii, it is a purposeful activity of the State, performed by the empowered agencies using legal tools of inﬂuence to solve law enforcement concerns (Ostrovskii, 2017). O. Bezpalova notes that the speciﬁed function is the direction of the state’s activity, which is implemented by the system of state authorities authorized to do so (mainly law enforcement agencies), local self-government, and the public, authorized exclusively within powers granted by law to implement legal measures of inﬂuence (including coercive measures) to provide legality and law and order (Bezpalova, 2014). us, the given deﬁnitions enable to summarize that the law enforcement function as a key area of law enforcement agencies operation has certain features. In our opinion, the most relevant are those formulated by V. Skindyuk It is about the fact that it: 1) is the direction of state policy, which is manifested in the state’s activities; 2) designed to defending individuals’ and legal entities’ rights and freedoms, the security of society and, accordingly, the security of the State, the purpose of which is to establish and ensure law and order; 3) incorporation actors are specially authorized state authorities; 4) implemented using the forms and methods deﬁned by administrative and legal regulations; 5) includes the possibility of using means of coercion in the procedural forms enshrined in the law in the presence of grounds enshrined by it (Shkindyuk, 2021). In common, law enforcement function as a component of the law enforcement structure is a complete network of legal and administrative measures aimed at ensuring law and order and defend- ing the citizens’ and society interests, the provision of which is the prerogative of law enforcement bodies. Its inﬂuence on social relations and citizens’ expectations of the quality of implementation of the system of such measures are factors in the formation of the social vision of justice, legality and the level of “guardianship” of the state in matters of its internal security. e last component of the law enforcement system that requires analysis in the context of the issues of this study, is law enforcement legal relations. It is worth noting that some domestic scientists distinguish between such concepts as “protec- tive legal relations” and “defense legal relations”. For example, G. Nakonechna, researching protec- tive administrative-legal relations involving courts, comes to the conclusion that such relations arise in proceedings to bring judges to disciplinary responsibility (Nakonechna, 2014). However, in our opinion, the speciﬁed legal relationship can also be characterized as protective, since the prosecu- tion of unscrupulous judges is not only a protective function, but also an important component of defending citizen’s rights and freedoms in the event that the judge’s actions have caused negative consequences for an individual. In addition, the judge himself can be a participant in protective

840 Kharchenko, Dmytriiev, Koshova, Tomchuk, Kaluhin Interacción y Perspectiva. Revista de Trabajo Social Vol. 15(3): 2025 and defense legal relations, albeit procedural ones. In this context, the investigation of phenomena is self-suﬃcient, because they perform diﬀerent tasks. However, scientists to a greater extent justify the absorption of one category of features by another, thus forming one category of compatible content. We are supporters of the opinion that theoretically the diﬀerentiation of law enforcement and human rights protection legal relations is rational, but in practical discourse it is not functional enough, and therefore we join the position of those scientists who consider security as a phenom- enon that absorbs protection. More speciﬁcally, it refers to the fact that protection is carried out constantly, and protection becomes necessary under exceptional conditions. erefore, in our opinion, the nature of law enforcement relations should not be limited exclu- sively to functional meaning. For example, there is a view that they are a legal form of social interac- tion between legal and capable subjects, which has an authoritative nature, is determined by the fact of committing an oﬀense and aims to restore the violated right, bring the oﬀender to a certain type of legal responsibility and enables enforcement it is a subjective legal obligation enshrined in law or contract and mediated by a law enforcement act (Serdiuk, 2008). e peculiarity of the direction of law enforcement activities is that most legal relations in this area are implemented on the basis of legal norms that prohibit the commission of illegal actions (norms of a special part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, legal norms that determine the composition of administrative oﬀenses, disciplin- ary oﬀenses) (Korneliuk, 2020). Consequently, law enforcement legal relations have the following characteristics: 1) they arise on the basis of legal norms; 2) they are related to the violation of legal prescriptions, that is, oﬀenses; 3) they are formed between individual natural persons (citizens, foreigners, stateless persons) and le- gal entities, on the one hand, and of the law enforcement operation actors, on the other (Korneliuk, 2020); 4) they are volitional relations, as they arise on the basis of state coercion and are applied on behalf of the state. In view of the above, it is worth emphasizing several important theses regarding the character of law enforcement relations. First, the concept of “legal protection” is covered by the concept of “legal defense” (Legenchenko, 2014); secondly, they should not be limited solely to the fact of com- mitting an oﬀense, because they also include preventive measures and may arise due to the need to counteract potential threats of committing oﬀenses; thirdly, the above-deﬁned characteristics of law enforcement legal relations need to be clariﬁed. In contrast the nature of law enforcement relations, the social aspect, in our opinion, is quite clear. In particular, as a form of regulation of social relations, law enforcement relations have a clear ideological and substantive structure, which is manifested by the community’s awareness of the need for their emergence and development. CONCLUSIONS It is worth noting that the conducted research revealed the lack of due attention by scientists to the social context of the law enforcement system of Ukraine, because their main scientiﬁc interest is focused on the identiﬁcation of its legal nature. In general, the law enforcement system as an object of scientiﬁc research in a social context is characterized by complexity, but at the same time it is quite understandable. Its main social purpose is objectiﬁed through procedures for the protection of both a certain range of values and public

El sistema de aplicación de la ley como fenómeno social: estructura y perspectivas de desarrollo 841 Vol. 15(3) julio - diciembre 2025/ 832 - 842 goods in general. e leading feature of the law enforcement system is the possibility of a logical and smooth transition of protective legal relations directly into protective ones, which provide an opportunity for a normatively deﬁned circle of persons to implement a law enforcement function, which is not only legally signiﬁcant, because it serves as a closing link in the chain “establishment - provision - implementation - protection”. but also socially necessary, as it guarantees the mainte- nance of law and order. e study of the law enforcement system elements indicates its static structure, which reﬂects a certain orderliness. However, the dynamic context of this issue consists in the constant change of the legislative provision of its functionality, which, in turn, indicates its ﬂexibility in the conditions of rapid social changes. It is worth noting that reformation of the law enforcement system of Ukraine is still relevant, because the development of a truly legal social state involves a number of optimization changes of a long-term nature. Under modern conditions, the range of law enforcement agencies powers has signiﬁcantly expanded, which is due to security factors, but it is extremely important to ensure a balance between the measures of “necessity” and “necessary” restrictions in the future. Accordingly, the creation of an adaptive, eﬀective and operational law enforcement system that will meet the modern challenges and needs of society is an issue of the present that has a long-term perspective of development. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES • Byelov, D. (2020). National security: as a category of constitutional law. Visegrad Journal on Human Right,. No 6. 45–52. • Byelov, D. M., Shved, I. I., & Byelova, M. V. (2023). e law enforcement function of the sta- te: the role and place of prosecutorial bodies. Scientiﬁc Bulletin of Uzhhorod National Universi- ty, No 76(1). 13–19. https://visnyk-juris-uzhnu.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/4.pdf. • Kovaliv, M. V., Yesimov, S. S., & Lozynskyi, Y. R. (2018). Legal regulation of law enforce- ment activities. Lviv: Lviv State University of Internal Aﬀairs. https://dspace.lvduvs.edu.ua/ bitstream/ 1234567890/73/1/kovaliv.%20esimov.pdf. • Petrushenko, V. L. (2011). Philosophical Dictionary: Terms, Personalities, Sentences. Lviv: Magnolia-2006. • Yednak, V. M. (2020). Prosecutor’s oﬃces in the system of law enforcement agencies of Ukrai- ne (Doctoral dissertation, Kharkiv). 446 p. • Dudchenko, O. (2019). e essence of the law enforcement system. Enterprise, Economy and Law, No 8. 144–149. http://pgp-journal.kiev.ua/archive/2019/8/28.pdf • Hrytsenko, V. G. (2015). Administrative and legal problems of optimizing the law enforce- ment system of Ukraine (Doctoral dissertation abstract, Kyiv). 36 p. • Malyshev, K. (2020). Conceptual-categorical apparatus of research of state policy problems in the ﬁeld of law enforcement system transformation. State and Regions, No 2. 242–247. http:// pa.stateandregions.zp.ua/archive/2_2020/42.pdf • Kulish, A. M. (2009). e law enforcement system of Ukraine: Administrative and legal prin- ciples of organization and functioning (Doctoral dissertation abstract, Kharkiv). 29 p.

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