Legal Gaps: Concept, Content, Problems of the Role of Legal Doctrine in Overcoming them

Abstract

The presented article considers the essence and content of the most common defect in legal science—“legal gaps”. This study presents various scientific approaches to the definition of legal gaps. Considering various scientific approaches, the authors of this study formulated their original version of this concept considering its absence from the theory of penitentiary law. The study analyses the main conceptual approaches to the problem of the progressiveness of law in the historical context. The main features of legal gaps are named to become able to distinguish them from conflicts of law. The authors outlined a set of features indicating the presence of a legislative gap in a particular case and provided a scientifically sound classification of gaps. The article also focused on the main types of legal gaps. In addition, the authors addressed the presence of legal gaps in Ukrainian legislation. The originality of this study lies in the formulation of new theoretical conclusions and generalizations that will help identify, eliminate, and overcome gaps in civil procedural law.