Taking into account the active reform of the system of state control and supervision, the issues of theoretical and legal justification of control and supervisory activities of public authorities become relevant. The author raises the problem of the modern content of the theory of control and supervisory legal relations, taking into account the evolution of existing scientific approaches to control and supervisory activities.

The objectives of the study are: designation of existing approaches to the theoretical and legal justification of control and supervisory activities; substantiation of the modern content of the theory of control and supervisory legal relations, characteristics of its basic provisions; identification and characteristics of current trends in the development of the theory of control and supervisory legal relations.

The methods of system and comparative analysis, structural-diachronic method, methods of legal formalization, structuring and classification were used as research methods.

The results of the study were the provisions on the modern structure of the theory of control and supervisory legal relations, based on the recognition of the presence of two levels of legal relations in state control and supervision, their regulation by legal norms, the need to distinguish between real legal relations and their normatively established model.

It is concluded that the theory of control and supervisory legal relations is an integral part of the theory of legal relations and in its development reflects the following trends: simultaneous and actually multidirectional processes of unification and differentiation of regulation of control and supervisory impact; a combination of the dominance of procedural regulation and framework regulation; the impact of digitalization of state control and supervision on the tools of control and supervisory impact, the system of legal statuses of participants in control and supervisory legal relations; allocation of supranational regulation of individual areas of state control and supervision in the context of economic integration; strengthening of connectivity with other forms of managerial interaction; consideration of control and supervisory legal relations in the context of various higher-level systems. The influence of the theory of control and supervisory legal relations on the development of administrative law science as a whole is substantiated.