Protection and safeguarding of human rights in interactions with the state bodies of the Ministry of Justice: the case of Ukraine

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine administrative and legal relations in the sphere of human rights protection by analysing and designing mechanisms that ensure the primacy of individual rights and freedoms within the system of social relations that arise, change, and terminate in the course of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine exercising its powers. The study identifies characteristic features of the authoritative-managerial, organizational-legal, and oversight mechanisms governing interactions between the Ministry, other public authorities, natural and legal persons, and international institutions with a view to ensuring the proper realisation, protection, and restoration of human rights in Ukraine. The research employs a set of methods: analysis and synthesis, epistemological and dialectical approaches, comparative-legal, statistical, formal-legal methods, and scholarly generalisation. To achieve the stated aim, the article outlines the key vectors of the Ministry’s interaction with other actors in human rights protection — state authorities, local self-government, international institutions, civil society organisations, and citizens. The findings show that legal mechanisms ensuring the observance and protection of human rights — particularly the right to social protection — play an essential role in shaping and implementing state policy through coordination of free legal aid, facilitation of access to justice, and related measures. Particular attention is given to the international dimensions of administrative and legal relations as shaped by Ukraine’s obligations in the field of social rights and cooperation with Council of Europe and UN institutions.