Analogy of the law as a way to ensure the unity of judicial practice in criminal proceedings

The paper reveals the need in and importance of ensuring the unified judicial practice. At the same time, the doctrinal and practical statement that the unity of judicial practice is an indicator of the quality of judicial proceedings is emphasized. In view of the above, the study considers the problem of effective ways or tools using which it is possible to achieve the best results for justice. In particular, the paper provides authoritative results of scientific researches carried out by national lawyers in relation to the range of approved ways to ensure the unified judicial practice, as well as an analysis of the legislative mechanisms of the process formed with judicial reforms over the past 30 years. As a result, the author states the negative impact of continuous transformations in the judicial system of Ukraine, since such a condition hinders an unbiased assessment of the implementation results. Moreover, the study indicates that the lack of sustainable and single-vector reformation of judicial system contributes to the process of revealing the gaps in the legislation, which also negatively affects the process of maintaining a unified approach in judicial practice. At the same time, the author discusses legislatively enshrined methods to ensure the unified judicial practice and concludes that only one of the listed methods – the formulation of legal conclusions by the court of cassation – is practically implemented in judicial activity. At the same time, it is noted that ensuring the unified judicial practice is a matter of judicial enforcement. And therefore, based on the deductive method of cognition and involvement of the conclusions of the theory of law on the forms of law implementation, the arguments are made about the possibility of considering the analogy of criminal procedural law as one of the ways to ensure the unity of judicial practice, since it provides a reliable and effective method of eliminating gaps in the legislation. The paper also emphasizes that, unlike other ways to ensure the unified judicial practice, the analogy is available for prompt application by the court of any instance, and not only by the cassation court in connection with the generalization of individual issues of law enforcement. Key words: analogy of the law, judicial practice, unity of judicial practice, law enforcement, gaps in legislation.