Essential-value discourse in the understanding in the context of the development of the rule of law

Introduction: the article is devoted to the consideration of one of the key theoretical and legal categories - “the essence of law”. The article pays close attention to the specifics of the institutional and functional realization of the essence of law at the present stage of development in conditions of improving the foundations of a social and legal state. The study is subject to doctrinal approaches to understanding the essence of law, its signs and properties; features of the regulation of the criteria of the general social essence of law in national legislation on the basis of the signs of the social state provided for by the norms of international law. Materials and methods: the study of the theoretical and legal category “the essence of law” is based on a comparative legal analysis of the norms of international and national law, a combination of formal legal, sociological and other private scientific methods of cognition, comprehension of legal doctrine and analysis of official statistics. The results of the study: the conclusions on the correlation of the features of the legal and social state are formulated, the criteria for assessing the general social essence of law in the conditions of the social state and improving the foundations of legal statehood are determined, the specifics of institutional-functional and subjective-activity signs and properties of the general social essence of law are revealed, taking into account the development of the democratic foundations of the political system, the implementation at the domestic and international levels of legal policy on the creation of legal guarantees of human social rights and freedoms. Findings and Conclusions: the functional and institutional characteristics of the general social essence of law in the conditions of the rule of law provide for a complex of subjective and activity characteristics and properties of law, implemented through a general social and legal impact on the system of public relations; the development of legal statehood provides for the creation of conditions for “stable and actual realization of general social and legal benefits”; the development of the social state in the conditions of legal statehood determines the formation of legal fundamentals of social responsibility; the implementation of the concept of a “social state” at the level of realization of the right endowed with a general social essence implies awareness of the place and role of social responsibility in the system of measures of general social and legal impact; the institutionalization of subjects of social responsibility involved in the mechanism of realization of the right on the basis of the principle of social solidarity is relevant.