Identification of Legal Psychology as an Independent Branch of Law

The science article conducts a theoretical and legal analysis of a new field of scientific knowledge – legal psychology from the standpoint of its perception as an independent branch of law. In the context of the above, the problematic aspects of legal psychology as a scientific, educational and applied branch of legal knowledge are studied on the basis of previously developed by legal psychologists levels of interaction and integration of law and psychology. The formation of legal psychology as a science and vectors of application of its achievements in judicial practice is analyzed. The author's approach in the formation of a new independent branch of law – legal psychology and determining its place in the classification of branches of law is proposed. The author emphasizes the need and urgent demand for the separation of legal psychology as a separate special branch of law that can regulate specific legal relations inherent in the fundamental (profiling) branches of law. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that in domestic legal science the division of the legal system in the field is assessed not in terms of its practical value, but rather in terms of confirming and defending certain scientific and theoretical ideas and concepts, contrary to the expediency of combining certain legal relations in the branch of law to achieve the desired social result through comprehensive study and regulation of specific relations. This, in turn, slows down the formation of new branches of law demanded by legal practice, among which legal psychology is singled out. It is emphasized that the question of the branch affiliation of legal psychology has not only theoretical but also practical significance, uniting individual legal relations in the field of law in order to achieve the desired social result through comprehensive study and regulation of these relations. Attention is drawn to the special classification of legal psychology as a special branch of law, as the latter combines the rules of law governing public relations and related to primary social relations aimed at concretization, strengthening certain rules of basic branches of law, while providing special legal regime for a particular type of social relations. By subordination in legal regulation, legal psychology belongs to the procedural types of branches of law, as it combines the rules of law that determine the procedure, the order for implementing substantive law (criminal procedure, civil procedure, commercial procedure, administrative procedure law). It is proposed to include legal psychology in an independent branch of law, given the presence of features that are inherent in the branches of law; the specificity of the regime of legal regulation; its direct connection with the needs of practice; recognition of its achievements in judicial practice; unification of certain legal relations in the subject of law; conditionality of functional purpose and the place of this industry in the legal system (its type in the classification of industries).