Transport statutes in the system of sources of law of Ukraine

The article is devoted to the issues of transport statutes as sources of transport law of Ukraine, their validity and ability to effectively regulate social relations in the field of railway, road, and inland water transport, taking into account the changes that have occurred in social, political and socio-economic life over the past time on the restoration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991. The author analyzes the formal preservation of the validity of the relevant legislative acts of the Soviet era, taking into account the normative legal acts adopted in 1991 on a legal succession of Ukraine. The author emphasizes that from a formal and legal point of view, the transport statutes of the Soviet era remain valid, however, due to the contradiction of a significant part of their norms with the legislation adopted later, these normative legal acts are increasingly losing their legal influence on social legal relations and are subject to the action of such a phenomenon as “forgetting the rules of law”. At the same time, it was noted that proposals to abandon transport statutes in favor of a cumbersome codification of transport law norms (by raising the norms of statutes to the level of law) are irrational since an overly detailed Transport Code of Ukraine or codes of laws in the fields of road, rail or inland water transport will not be simple in use and will not meet the technical and legal requirements to the law. As a result, the author concludes that transport statutes in general are necessary regulatory legal acts. Still, their current editions are to a large extent morally outdated and such that they urgently need a radical revision to bring them into line with the changed norms of the legislation of Ukraine and take into account the need for adaptation of the national legal system to the law of the European Union. Thus, the application of their current editions in practical activities should be carried out after a thorough legal examination for the relevance of certain provisions.