Abstract. The article analyzes the concept of lawmaking as a complex set of various elements (implementation of state will and legal norms; state sanctioning of human behavior; direct formation of new norms by competent law-making bodies). It is noted that modern understanding of lawmaking is based on the ideas of identity can be divided into three areas: natural law, positive law, legal and sociological. Representatives of positivism understand law as a product of the state; proponents of natural law concept - as a form of consciousness, a universal controller, based on a system of common values regulatory guidelines that exist in society and nature, and which serve as a criterion of justice and legal rights; representatives of the sociological approach believe that the existence of law is possible, but not in the form of simple texts of law that operate without awareness, and not as legal knowledge and ideas that are diverse and ineffective, but as an order of social relations in human behavior and actions. The author notes that the essence of law and law-making can be most fully revealed by combining sociological and natural-legal approaches. Norms of positive law should serve as a tool to ensure the rules of natural law, which are adjusted to social realities. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the current period of Ukraine's development is characterized by the search for effective models of building the rule of law, which requires the involvement of a new style of scientific and legal thinking, which should be a philosophical and sociological approach. Although law is a social phenomenon, it cannot but have a natural basis. The inadequacy of the reflection of natural law in the positive will result in distortion of law, deformation of its essence and purpose. It is emphasized that the legislator has a task to consolidate the norms of natural law in the positive in accordance with the realities of a particular historical stage of development of society. That is, the law of each state is also determined by its legal and social culture. The higher the level of social and legal culture in a given state, the more developed the law.
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