Methodological Basis of Application of the Principles of the Economy’s Social Orientation in the Context of Security Threats (Based on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine’s Practice)

The article is devoted to the characteristics of the methodological and epistemological basis of the application of the principle of social orientation of the economy by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Based on the application of methods of systematic and comparative analysis of the Court's decisions of 1997-2025, it was established that among the legal and technical instruments for ensuring the principle of social orientation of the economy in the constitutional justice of Ukraine, an important place belongs to the principles of social justification and objective justification of legislative regulation. At the same time, the assessment of the justification of legislative regulation is based on legal, social and economic (in particular, functional-target) cognition. The purpose of social and economic cognition is to identify the presence/absence of objective social grounds for the legislator's (non)differentiation of the legal statuses of participants in economic relations, establishing the features of the procedure for exercising their rights and/or the limits of such exercise, etc. In the practice of the Constitutional Court, the unity of cognitive and value-evaluative relations is expressed. The implicit basis of the social cognition carried out by the Constitutional Court is the principle of epistemological optimism, according to which the social relations that are the subject of consideration are cognizable. Assessment of the validity of legal differences (as the identification and assessment of the significance of the social grounds for their establishment) is a special method of socio-legal cognition, not identical to the assessment of the compliance of the established differences with their legitimate purpose (the principle of "proportionality"). The basis for the conclusion of the body of constitutional jurisdiction on the validity of those legislative differences that ensure the operation of the principle of the social orientation of the economy can be recognized as socially legitimate dependencies - connections established between: a) legal features and empirical factors; b) norms of the Constitution and norms of the laws of Ukraine; c) moral concepts and legislative norms. There has been an evolution from the principle of equal protection of the legislative features of the legal regime of forms of ownership to the implementation of European legal standards of proportionality and non-discrimination in constitutional jurisprudence in the areas of civil and commercial law. In the social sphere, the Constitutional Court has specified the principle of a fair balance between the interests of the individual and society as the state's right to resolve social issues depending on existing financial and economic capabilities. At the same time, the Constitutional Court established a prohibition on restrictions that violate the essence of constitutional social rights of individuals and the obligation of the state to ensure, under any circumstances, adequate living conditions compatible with human dignity. The Constitutional Court also recognized the existence of social obligations that are independent of the state's financial capabilities and its economic situation with regard to persons affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.