Equality of the Parties in the Disputes for Protection of Economic Rights with Participation of the Prosecutor: on the Materials of Case-Law

Abstract

The paper addresses the topic of business entities’ rights and interests protection in courts with participation of the prosecutor. The goal of the publication lies in defining the nature of the prosecutor’s participation in commercial trials influence upon adherence with the principle of equality of commercial process parties as a necessary condition for adjudicating a just judgment in a case. To reach this goal, the author defines and fulfills the following tasks: 1) to define the main academic approaches to the resolution of the prosecutor’s participation in a commercial process issue; 2) to describe normative regulation of the prosecutor’s participation in a commercial process; 3) to expose the meaning of the principle of equality of the parties of a commercial process; 4) to define the most important provisions regarding the prosecutor’s engaging into the commercial process elaborated in case-law of national higher courts and ECtHR; 5) to make conclusions on adhering to the principles of equality of the parties of a commercial process and efficient business entities’ rights protection in a trial with the prosecutor’s participation.The methodology of the study includes such methods as formal-legal and comparative-legal methods, the method of systematic analysis and generalization of judicial practice.The scientific novelty of the study is in defining the influence of the prosecutor’s participation in the commercial process on the (1) balance of interests of the parties, ensuring the principle of equality before the law and the court of all the participants of the economic process, (2) observing the principle of dispositibility and the rule of law, taking into account the constitutional principles of representation of the individual’s interests in the court by the lawyer, as well as participants circle of economic legal relations and economic procedural relations.According to the results of the research, it was concluded that narrowing of the range of cases (grounds) for the prosecutor’s participation in the commercial process in order to protect the interests of the state meets the standards of rule of law, of equality of the parties, and of dispositivity in the judication of disputes with the purpose of protection by business entities of their rights. The development of Ukrainian legislation in this direction is generally in line with the process of democratization of society, the rule of law, and the right to fair trial, which is impossible to ensure without respect for the principle of equality of the parties.