Fundamentals of Legal Policy as a Relevant Direction of Legal Research

Introduction: legal policy is among those phenomena of political and legal life that have the most significant influence on the functioning and development of the current law, as well as other elements of the legal system. The general focus of legal policy on solving strategic tasks in the field of legal regulation and legal development of society actualizes the question of the nature and content of its foundations, i.e., those central ideas, requirements, attitudes on which this policy is or should be built. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate the theoretical and practical significance of the fundamentals of legal policy as a special direction of legal research. The research methodology is represented by the general scientific and special techniques and methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis, comparison, scientific criticism, formal-logical, etc.). Content: the paper shows the praxiological, axiological and methodological significance of raising the question of the fundamentals of legal policy. The fragmentary nature of existing ideas about the fundamentals of legal policy and the lack of conceptual clarity on a number of current problems (the relationship between the fundamentals of legal policy and the fundamentals of legal regulation; the ways of legal institutionalization of the fundamentals of legal policy; the content of the scientific foundations of legal policy; the peculiarity of the ideological foundations of legal policy) are noted. Conclusions: the term “fundamentals of legal policy” primarily correlates with the ideological and theoretical content of legal policy, reflecting the main and most essential in this content. The fundamentals of legal policy are a complex concept. Legal, ethical, scientific and other ideas (requirements, attitudes, concepts) constitute the ideological and theoretical basis of legal policy to the extent that they serve as a source for the formation and development of state-legal strategy, ensure its conformity with established foundations of spiritual-moral and socio-political life, and are an expression of the essential imperatives of legal consciousness.