PRINCIPLES AND FRAMEWORKS OF LEGAL CERTAINTY

Abstract

 The issue of legal certainty poses one of the fundamental questions that arises within the framework of every modern legal system, especially when assessing its institutional arrangement, the degree of established democracy and the manner of achieving relations between the state and its citizens. Legal certainty is an integral part of the broader concept of the rule of law, and ensuring it should represent one of the basic goals of every regulated legal order. The concept of legal certainty, in principle, implies the right of every person to be informed in a clear, predictable and timely manner of the legal norms that regulate his or her legal position, as well as the right to their consistent and equal application in identical or similar factual and equal situations. It should be noted that the issue of legal certainty is directly related to the issue of legal predictability in the context of conducting court proceedings in individual disputes. Also, when we talk about legal certainty, we primarily mean the existence of a stable and consistent regulatory framework that is not subject to frequent changes, for reasons of consistency and efficiency of the legal norms themselves from which it is composed. The paper will discuss complex aspects of legal certainty, which include regulatory transparency, uniformity of case law, as well as consistent application of law. Accordingly, the phenomenon of legal success in court proceedings will be analyzed, with a special emphasis on legal entities operating in highly regulated sectors such as banking and insurance. Finally, the concept of legal certainty will be viewed in the paper, in addition to the formal-legal aspect, as an element of legal culture and legal awareness that influences citizens' trust in institutions and the legitimacy of the entire legal order.