Subject of Protection in Cases of Special Proceedings: Subjective Right or Legal Interest?

The discussion about what distinguishes special proceedings in civil and arbitration proceedings from claims has been conducted in Russian procedural science for more than a dozen years. The scientific community has proposed a number of criteria to explain the specific nature of a special production and to distinguish it from the production of a claim. One of these criteria is the subject of protection, but even in this matter, process scientists have failed to achieve unity. Some researchers are of the opinion that the subject of protection in cases of this type of production is a legitimate, legally protected legal interest, while others believe that the subject of protection in this case may also be a subjective right.
To clarify this difficult issue, it is necessary to start from what constitutes subjective law and legal interest as legal permissions, what are the main types of legal interests, what is the difference in the legal regulation of legal interests and subjective rights, how such a difference affects the legal facts that are the grounds for the emergence, modification or termination of legal relations, the content of which are, respectively, legal interests and subjective rights.
The study was carried out using the formal logical method, the method of system analysis, comparative legal and special legal methods.
The conducted research has shown that in the order of the so-called disputed cases of special proceedings, both subjective rights and final legal interests can be the subject of protection (this is the name given to legal interests that are not capable of turning into a subjective right). At the same time, unlike subjective rights, the protection of which in a special procedure involves the elimination of the disputability of only the actual characteristics of a legal fact, the final legal interest is protected by eliminating the disputability of the actual or legal characteristics of a legal fact, which is the basis for the emergence of a legal relationship.
In so-called undisputed cases of special proceedings, intermediate legal interests are the subject of protection. As a result of the resolution of the case, the intermediate legal interest becomes a subjective right and is subsequently implemented as a subjective right. The indisputable order of special proceedings is determined by the fact that the court creates a legal composition that replaces the missing and non-recoverable legal fact, which is the basis for the emergence of subjective law.