ADMINISTRATIVE AND LEGAL STATUS OF THE SUBJECTS ENSURING THE DIGITALIZATION OF CUSTOMS PROCEDURES: CONCEPT AND STRUCTURE

Abstract

The article examines the practical and theoretical issues related to defining the administrative and legal status of the subjects responsible for ensuring the digitalization of customs procedures in Ukraine, and elucidates its concept, content, and structural elements within the framework of public administration and in the context of implementing EU customs law digital practices. The methodological basis of the study consists of general scientific and special legal methods, in particular the dialectical, systemic-structural, formal-logical, comparative-legal methods, as well as the method of legal modeling. It is determined that the subjects responsible for ensuring the digitalization of customs procedures within public administration constitute a set of public authorities and other authorized institutions which, within the limits of their administrative and legal status as defined by legislation, carry out the formulation and implementation of state policy in the field of digitalization in the course of customs procedures by adopting normative legal acts, managerial decisions, coordinating interagency cooperation, and implementing control measures. It is proposed that the essence of the administrative and legal status of the subjects ensuring the digitalization of customs procedures should be understood as a set of rights and obligations enshrined in the norms of administrative law, through which the performance of their tasks and functions related to digitalization in the process of customs control, customs clearance, and the assessment and collection of customs payments is ensured. It is substantiated that the administrative and legal status of the subjects ensuring the digitalization of customs procedures encompasses their legal personality, competence, powers, forms and methods of activity, tasks and functions, guarantees of their activity, as well as administrative liability for violations of legislation in the field of digitalization of customs procedures. One of the conclusions reached is that, according to the criterion of competence, the subjects under study should be classified, depending on the scope and nature of their public authority in the field of formation and implementation of the digitalization of customs procedures, into three groups: subjects of general competence, subjects of sectoral (special) competence, and subjects of intersectoral competence. It is noted that a promising direction for further research in this area is an in-depth analysis of the liability mechanisms of the subjects responsible for the digitalization of customs procedures, as well as the study of the correlation between their competence and the powers of other state authorities, the forms of their interaction and coordination, and the examination of international customs standards.