Legal status of a law enforcement official of Mongolia

The author highlights the issues related to the essence and implementation of the legal status of a law enforcement official. These issues are the focus of attention of scientists (primarily specialists in administrative law), legislators, civil society, as well as of the employees themselves. The terms «legal status» and «legal situation» are analysed in details. The issues related to the definition of the legal status of a law enforcement official of Mongolia are considered. The author presents a wide range of opinions of lawyers on the content of the concept of «legal status of a law enforcement official», gives various classifications of the term of legal status, and presents his vision of this problem and its solution with regard to law enforcement agencies of Mongolia. The author agrees with the point of view of those specialists who point out that the specificity of the legal status of a law enforcement official, his rights and duties, requires adopting other components, such as responsibility, which are quite justified. The author also underlines that there is almost no mention of the key-concept «a law enforcement official» in Mongolian legislation. This led to a conclusion that this concept should be legalized before being considered in details. The research also briefly discusses the main results of the extensive work on reforming police in 2011–2015. The author notes that the absolute following the example of Western countries was not appropriate. Thus, the author criticizes some aspects of the transition of the police from a special service to a public one, for example, the procedure for assigning special ranks by positions held, which led to an outflow of specialists from the law enforcement sphere to other areas. The author concludes that legally fixed features characterizing the legal status of a law enforcement official are far from exhaustive and require further rethinking, research, improvement in law-making and law enforcement.