Administrative and legal protection bodies: problematic issues regarding the classification of law enforcement authorities

The article analyzes the main approaches to the classification of law enforcement agencies, as well as the allocation of a separate category of administrative and legal protection. It is argued that recently in our country the issue of reforming law enforcement agencies has become increasingly acute, without the solution of which the effective operation of these state institutions is impossible. It was found that democratization of public relations, constitutional reform, intensification of European integration processes, improvement of legislation to strengthen the protection of civil rights and freedoms necessitate a clear definition of the theoretical nature of the legal status of law enforcement agencies. However, despite the study of the peculiarities of the law enforcement system of Ukraine and their legal status in the works of modern scientists, this issue can not be attributed to be resolved at the theoretical and methodological level. After all, most of them are analyzed in general by law enforcement agencies, provide a certain classification model, without considering the specific types of law enforcement agencies, including administrative and legal protection, which is the relevance of this study. It is concluded that the bodies of administrative and legal protection should include those bodies that directly perform law enforcement functions, control and supervisory functions in various spheres of public relations, without taking into account their powers to use state coercion. It follows that this category can include a significant number of public authorities. In this regard, we can point to such bodies as: State Customs Service of Ukraine, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, State Migration Service of Ukraine, State Audit Office of Ukraine, State Financial Monitoring Service, Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, National Agency for Prevention of Corruption etc. Prospects for further study of the outlined issues should be considered the possibility of distinguishing within the category of "bodies of administrative and legal protection" varieties of such bodies, according to the criterion of public relations.