Articles

The question of finding the best option for ensuring the rights of persons against whom criminal prosecution is actually carried out has a long history, one way or another arises in many legal orders. Over the entire period of discussion of this problem, various mechanisms for its resolution were formulated, some of which were implemented at the legislative level and brought a significant positive effect. However, despite the variability of specific approaches, the task of properly guaranteeing the rights of criminally prosecuted persons is not removed from the agenda. Moreover, following the development of criminal procedure institutions, the improvement of forms and methods of combating crime, a complex of contradictions associated with the observance of the rights of alleged offenders also evolves. Thus, one can note the cyclical nature of the existing discussions, the degree of which rises from time to time. The Russian criminal procedure doctrine is currently in the phase of active discussion of this issue. In this regard, within the framework of the article, an attempt was made to evaluate the existing proposals, to understand why numerous ideas do not achieve a positive result, and in the end to answer the question of the advisability of continuing scientific research in this area.

This article, based on the achieved level of development of the theory and practice of prosecutorial supervision, which has proved its position in legal reality as an independent branch of law and a field of scientific knowledge, examines the current aspects of the improving of the legal regulation of the activity of the prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation as the most important state–legal institution. It is recommended that, among the sources of information necessary for this purpose, specifically refer to the results of historical and legal analysis of the evolution of the formation of legislation on the prosecutor’s office, materials of scientific research, legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on cases of examining the constitutionality of laws, both directly related to the activity of the prosecutor’s office, and other regulations related to its professional activity. The article highlights, within acceptable limits, the provisions essential for ensuring, according to the authors, proper legal regulation of the position, significance and content of the purpose and types of tasks on which the completeness, certainty and efficiency of the final results of the prosecutor’s office depend. In line with the provisions of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation” № 1-FKZ, March 14, 2020, the considerations on the legislative solution of the problem of the functions of the prosecutor’s office, possible counter-arguments addressed to the potential opponents of the multifunctional nature of the Russian prosecutor’s office are outlined. The article pays some attention to the issues of legal regulation of the powers of prosecutors, service in the prosecutor’s office

The constitutional reform that took place in 2020 affected many aspects of public and social life. One of these aspects was the functioning judicial system in the Russian Federation. In particular, the unified federal judicial system has lost one of its elements — the constitutional (statutory) courts of the subjects. It seems that such legislative transformations can be considered as a kind of finale of the history of regional constitutional control in the Russian Federation, which was discussed for quite a long time in the domestic legal doctrine. However, the format chosen by the federal legislator for the abolition of regional constitutional courts was actually aimed at transforming rather than eliminating the existing system, which is confirmed by the mention in the text of the relevant law of bodies completely new to the domestic system of public power — constitutional (charter) councils under the legislative body of the subject of the Russian Federation. The article provides a critical analysis of the transformation of the regional system of constitutional control, in particular, draws attention to two key problems: 1) inconsistency of the federal legislator in the organization of a new (reorganization of the old) system of regional constitutional control; 2) low interest of the regions in the development and strengthening of their own autonomous system of regional control. In conclusion, the author’s analysis of the current regional practice of the activities of regional constitutional (charter) councils is proposed.

For the development of Russian constitutional law, international anticorruption standards are of great interest, which are beginning to spread their influence on the ideas of national governments about modern requirements for regulating power relations. A good example of a traditional topic for constitutional law, which is affected by the anticorruption conventions of the United Nations and the documents of the “soft law” of the Council of Europe, are the issues of electoral law. Specialized international legal standards that try to curb corrupt practices during the electoral process have been developing since the early 2000s. The most well-known group of such standards is related to guaranteeing transparency in the financing of election campaigns and political parties. This article examines the Russian experience of implementing Part 3 of Article 7 of the 2003 UN Convention against Corruption through participation in a specially created “Mechanism for reviewing the implementation of the Convention”, and also analyzes the specifics of implementing the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe “On Common Rules for combating corruption in the financing of political Parties and election campaigns” 2003 through the mechanisms of GRECO — A special organization of the Council of Europe, designed to monitor the progress of States in improving national legislation in the spirit of pan-European anti-corruption ideals. Despite Russia’s formal withdrawal from the Council of Europe in 2022, the European anti-corruption conventions and mechanisms of this international organization continue to be an interesting object for study.

Reviewed the monograph by E. A. Frolova “Rational Foundations of Law: Classics and Modernity”. The reviewers come to the conclusion about the relevance of this book and its significance for the development of theoretical-legal and philosophical-legal thought in Russia and note that E. A. Frolova objectively investigated the essence of law from a theoretical standpoint. This approach gave her the opportunity to identify urgent problems of modern legal science and propose ways to resolve them. The review notes the deep study of legal sources, as well as scientific literature of various centuries, carried out in the course of the study.

The article reveals the main ideas and content of the current monographic research on the topic “Changing of Technological Orders and Legal Development of Russia” (Moscow, 2021), in which the author’s concept of legal genesis is presented on an interdisciplinary basis. This concept determines the legal genesis of the defining role of the dominant technology and technological structure of Russian society. Based on the position of the authors of the monograph, the specifics of the emergence, state and dynamics of the development of law, its regularities are largely determined by the technological factor at a particular historical period of time on the path of society’s movement from the traditional to the post-industrial type. Revealing from new methodological positions the fundamental natural connections of technological, economic and legal processes significant for the general theory and history of law at different historical stages, the authors build a certain logic of cyclical, wave development of the history of Russian law, due to the convergence of economic, technological and legal processes proper. An original interpretation of the periodization of the history of Russian law depending on technological structures is given, it is shown that in the evolution of domestic law, changes in its systemic and structural characteristics, a special place should be given to the role of the technological factor and the problem of dialectics of economic, technological and legal convergence.

This research is the fourth in a series of articles devoted to the issues of genetic and legal education. In the first work, the author revealed the measure of freedom of the subject of law determining the mode of data use on the example of genetic information; in the second — the measure of freedom of the subject-addressee of genetic education in the context of its content; in the third — the features of the forms of genetic and legal education in the society of the Industry 4.0 era. The objective of the article is to analyze the work of genetic and legal education executors. The success and effectiveness genetic and legal education directly depends on its executors, who have to have the particular knowledge in respective field. And if this problem is being solved on school education level, then in regards to the remaining multimillion audience there’s still a lot of work that specialists have to do. As a result of this the objectives of this article are to study specific competences of genetic and legal education executors and study the form and means of this education. Authors focus on education factors which influence the competence model of subjects, performing genetic and legal education, composition. They also focus on the skill set and knowledge that the team of these educators should have, meaning special skills of genetic and law education executors are being analyzed. This article views the practical meaning of genetic and law education, its types and corresponding to it methods (official and unofficial education) are being analyzed. Authors conclude that it is necessary to conceptualize genetic legal education, and therefore provide relevant recommendations for science and practice pointing out the necessity to combine official and unofficial forms of education and work over the question of introduction of “genetic ombudsman”. In the course of this study, logical, comparative-legal and formal-legal methods were used.

The article examines the possibility of prosecution for the crime of aggression committed through cyber-attacks (cyberaggression) under international criminal law. The author analyzes the material elements of the crime, examines the most extensive cyberattacks in the last 15 years and concludes that such requirements of the art. 8bis as commitment of the act of aggression only by State and the threshold requirement for the act of aggression to reach the level of manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as the lack of indication on the opened or closed list of acts of aggression in art. 8bis, makes its application to cyberaggression difficult. The Rome Statute’s provisions on the subject of the crime of aggression which limit both primary perpetrators and accomplices to those who are in position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the action of a State, prevent cybercrime perpetrators from being held liable for the crime of aggression. Similar difficulties arise when applying the mental element requirements of the crime of aggression to possible cases of cyberaggression, such as intent and knowledge to commit crime of aggression. At the same time the author recognizes the possibility and even the need to extend the definition of aggression to cases of committing this crime through cyberattacks.

The legal problems associated with Austria’s permanent neutrality are discussed in both Austrian and Russian international law literature controversially. Already the establishment of the Austrian neutrality in 1955 raises some legal questions. This article addresses — after an introduction to permanent neutrality as an institute of international law — the question of whether the Austrian neutrality is anchored in international law and, if so, on what legal basis that anchoring is based. By means of a comparative presentation of the Austrian and Soviet/Russian international law doctrine, an attempt is made to work out which of these various legal opinions appears justifiable from the view of the international law of neutrality. It will be shown that the obligations arising from Austria’s status of permanent neutrality go beyond those that are explicitly mentioned in the federal constitutional law on neutrality (Neutrality Act). Furthermore, it is presented that there are convincing reasons to argue for an anchoring of the Austrian neutrality in international treaty law in the Moscow Memorandum (April 1955) as well as in the State Treaty of Vienna (May 1955) and that the notification of the Neutrality Act provides another opportunity for a legal basis in international law. Furthermore, an attempt is made to show why the legal opinion which assumes that the Austrian neutrality is merely anchored in the Neutrality Act, and thus only on national law ground, has to be rejected.