Nature and classification of special principles of national labour law

Abstract

Most often, the principles of law in specialized literature are understood as the “initial principles”, “ideas” and “provisions” of law. It seems that such conclusions could only be made from the standpoint of legal positivism, which restricts essentially “all” law only to the norms of labour law contained in national legal acts. The article makes a different conclusion: ontologically homogeneous elements are synthesized from the position of the scientifically substantiated concept of integrative legal understanding, first of all, the principles and norms of labour law contained in a single, developing and multilevel system of forms of national and (or) international labour law implemented in the state. With this theoretical approach, the principles of law can be controversially referred to as quite vague “principles,” “ideas,” and “positions”. In support of their position, the authors of the article present several vivid examples of application of the Ruling No. 21 of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on June 2, 2015 “On Certain Issues that Arose in the Courts when Applying Legislation Governing the Work of the Head of the Organization and Members of the Collegial Executive Body of the Organization”. The article provides an overview of ideas about the principles of law and their change in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern periods. The authors emphasize that the special principles of national labour law are derived from the fundamental (general) principles of both national and international law which, by their nature, constitute undeniable law (jus cogens) binding on law-making and law-enforcement agencies as well as officials. The article advocates the position that the special principles of national labour law are the fundamental, primary elements of the labour law system that independently regulate labour relations in order to specify the norms of labour law.