Academic Freedom and Individual Right to Development (To Formation and Exchange of the World of Ideas)

Abstract

The state of academic freedoms in Ukraine has been influenced by prolonged stay of a significant part of Ukrainian lands within the Russian Empire and Soviet Union with alien rules and procedures to Ukrainian legal tradition. This post-colonial state with academic freedoms is also associated with a long-term ideological dictatorship in scientific researches. Academic freedom will be revealed in the context of modern constitutionalism as a continuum of creating and exchanging images, ideas, concepts, theories, and doctrines. In accordance with the principles of the rule of law and proportionality, the essential content, the structural elements of academic freedom and the degree of state interference in its enforcement are determined. There is a moral justification for human dignity as a self-sufficient value which is crucial to the interpretation of fundamental freedoms, including such a component of dignity as academic freedom. The rationing of academic freedom at the constitutional level has only a framework character through the fundamental principles of law, which determine the parameters of individual academic freedom, freedom of scientific activity and university autonomy. Their realization is carried out by exchanging and discussing ideas, theories, and doctrines and providing competition between them while exchanging socially significant information, which is the source of the dynamics of the development of academic freedoms. It has been revealed the role of the academic environment and competition in the market of ideas, theories and doctrines in the deepening and development of academic freedoms. In the light of this, the main positive obligations of the state are determined to facilitate the exercise of academic freedoms. In the light of this it has been identified the basic positive obligations of the state in order to assist in the implementation of academic freedom.

The positive obligations of the state in the field of academic freedom include: supporting the infrastructure of higher schools, universities and scientific institutions; adequate budget funding for these institutions; control over the quality of training programs by their accreditation; facilitating introduction of innovations into educational process and implementation of research results.

An important part of this process is respect for the dignity of the person who has the right to free development of his/her personality, protection of the results of his/her scientific research, provided by proper legal guarantees.