Efficiency of law in the terminological apparatus of the theory of law

Introduction: the term 'efficiency' is one of the most popular in juridical literature, it is applied to law, legislation, legal regulation, legal norms, law enforcement, functions and functioning of law, and to many other legal phenomena. However, the use of this concept in legal theory and branch-specific studies is usually not restrained by any methodological framework, which results in an impression of its uncontrolled application, when any theoretical and methodological value of this phenomenon vanishes. The fact that lawyers employ the meanings of this term from related sciences, especially economics, and the direct application of the general scientific philosophical understanding of efficiency create great difficulties for legal understanding of the concept. The terminological apparatus of the theory of law is constantly broadened with new terms and concepts that are close to efficiency of law and need to be understood in terms of the relation hereto, while the study of legal efficiency, which a priori should be as up-to-date as possible, still adheres to the theoretical basis developed in the 70-80s of the last century. Purpose: to clarify the place of law efficiency in the terminological apparatus of the theory of law through determining its autonomy and relationship with other related legal categories. Method: the dialectical method of cognition was used as the main method, which allowed us to consider the development of the legal phenomenon under study from the historical perspective, within different types of understanding of law, and in dynamics of development; there were also used general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, comparison, analogy) and specific scientific methods (historical-legal, juridical-dogmatic, legal modeling, and legal interpretation methods). Results: the paper demonstrates the dependence of the law efficiency concept on the types of understanding of law. The specific legal understanding of law efficiency as a correspondence between the actual and prescribed behavior merges with the concept 'implementation of law'. The variety of ideas of law efficiency being different in their content and the use of this term for various, often purely stylistic, purposes proves the lack of a clear theoretical and legal understanding of the concept. The paper demonstrates relations between law efficiency and such categories as law effect, law profit, law expediency, law effectiveness, and law optimality. It has been proved that most often efficiency of law is identified with effectiveness of law (achievement of the goal of a legal norm). The attempts to apply the broadest possible understanding of law efficiency led to its merging with such categories as essence, content, goals, tasks, functions of law, legal culture, legal psychology, legal consciousness. Efficiency of law should be considered in conjunction with such new concepts as regulatory and actual legal impact, deregulation, 'regulatory guillotine'.