CONSTITUTIONAL HUMAN RIGHT TO THE SEСRET OF CORRESPONDENCE IN THE STATES OF THE AMERICAN SPACE

The article is devoted to the analysis of the legislation of the constitutional right to the secret of correspondence in the states of the American space at the national and international level. The author proposed a classification of constitutions of American states and grouped into six groups, namely: “British”, “American”, “Dutch”, “French”, “Spanish” and “Danish”. Citizens of the American states that are members of the “Organization of American States” and have ratified the American Convention on Human Rights have legitimate reasons to defend their violated right to the secret of correspondence (Article 11 of the Convention) not only within the competence of the courts of their state, but also at the international, inter-American level requesting protection from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (San Jose, Costa Rica), after having undergone an agreement with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The main results of the research are to determine the three forms of formulation of the constitutional norm: its legal form in the form of “freedom from interference with correspondence” (as part of the “freedom of expression”) (the “British” group of states and the dependent territories of France); and / or a component of the “right to private and family life” (“American” group); or independent “right to inviolability of correspondence” (“French” group of independent states, “Portuguese”, “Spanish” and “Danish group” of states and dependent territories). Also, author proposed compared the constitutional experience of securing the correspondence of American states with the experience of Ukraine. The author comes to conclusions about the closest similarity of the mentioned constitutional norm enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine with the “French”, “Portuguese”, “Spanish” and “Danish” groups of constitutions, with the only exception being that the restriction of the right to inviolability of correspondence is possible not only on the basis of a court decision, but on the basis of the decision of the special competent authority, which is absent in Ukraine.