Articles

The key question of this article is whether legal claims and legal privileges (in Hohfeldian sense) are to be regarded as self-sufficient entities of their own, or they should be paired with other elements like legal powers. The basic thesis of the piece is that legal power is an indispensable element of a legal right of each and every type in private law. To demonstrate the viability of this basic thesis, the German concept of the so-called claim right (der Anspruch) in private law has been put under scrutiny. Various theoretical models of a claim right, as developed in the German private law doctrine, have been analysed (theories of B Windscheid, E. R. Bierling and A. Thon). All of them conceived claim right as inextricably connected with the legal power to dispose. Basically, the same is true of privileges (liberties in the Hohfeldian scheme of jural relationships), which, as the author thinks, cannot operate without legal powers.

Modern constitutional-law scholarship, paying considerable attention to the methods of interpretation of the Russian Federation Constitution, often bypasses the substantive issues of interpretation of constitutional concepts, usually pushing them into the field of legal technique. A large number of studies focus on the issues of constitutional terminology, i. e. on the external aspect of constitutional concepts, leaving aside their meaning and place in the system of constitutional regulation. Meanwhile, the proper determination of the content and scope of a constitutional provision depends directly on the interpretation of the concept that forms the basis of the constitutional norm. For this purpose, the Russian Constitutional Court, which is authorized to interpret the Russian Federation Constitution in an official and binding way, applies the method of autonomous interpretation, which involves interpreting constitutional notions in the system of constitutional provisions without limiting to the definitions given to them by the statutory regulation. This method of interpretation has not been thoroughly understood in the domestic constitutional-law science in relation to the activities of the Russian Constitutional Court. However, under the conditions of the increasing complexity of the system of legislation, as well as in connection with the participation of the Russian Federation in international organizations, the autonomous interpretation of the Russian Federation Constitution may be in demand in the practice of the Russian Constitutional Court.

Changes to regulations on dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation provoked a vivid discussion among the Russian legal professionals. It appears that arguments in this discussion are closely connected to approval or disapproval of constitutional judges’ dissenting opinions as such. The present paper attempts to discuss the legislative amendments regulating dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court from another perspective, namely through a comparative study of regulating of this sphere in dynamics, in Russia and abroad. For the aims of the study it is proposed to examine normative regulations on the right to dissenting opinion from “material” (right to dissenting opinion) and “procedural” (right to publish a dissenting opinion) aspects. The comparative analysis allowed identifying similarities and unique elements of the current legislation with that in foreign countries. Establishing requirements for contents of a judge’s dissenting opinion or to the form (style) of its expression can be regarded as relatively common. Yet, the situation where public expression of a dissenting opinion of a judge of a constitutional supervisory body is impossible while judges of general courts encounter no such limitation, is rather unique.

The teleological approach, which is based on comparing the obtained result with the set goals, is often used to determine the effectiveness of legal regulation of environmental relations. The correct formulation of goals in environmental legislation and taking into account a number of relevant factors affecting formulation of the goals, can increase the accuracy of determining the effectiveness of environmental legal regulation. The aim of the study is to establish the key characteristics of the goals of legal regulation of environmental relations, which lead to a correct determination of the effectiveness of the regulation. The task of analyzing the goals enshrined in the legislation in the aspect of identifying their clarity and unambiguity is set. The problem of the increased role of economic interests in the legal regulation of some social relations that are closely connected to environmental ones was raised. Because of this, the state of the environment is excluded from the overall assessment of effectiveness. There are shown examples of laws that are actually ecologized due to the essence of regulated relations and due to the presence of norms of environmental law in them, but in which are not goals that have bound to the regulation of the impact of economic or other activities on the environment. Some of the new institutions of environmental law are assessed as ambiguous in terms of targeting. It is emphasized that the goals of regulating of environmental relations are based on the concept of a favorable environment. It is concluded that environmental interests, if any, should be reflected in the setting of legal goals. The conditionality of goals by the existence of environmental interests, the clarity and transparency of their formulations, in their part, entail the correctness and completeness of determining the effectiveness of environmental legal regulation.

The article is devoted to the division of the categories "absoluteness" and "relativity" in the theory of legal relations. In our opinion, the main purpose of such division arises from the existence of socially significant relationships that develop, in the first case (absolute rights), between a particular person and other persons, in the second (relative rights) — between specific persons. As a result, the author concludes, that the relative legal relationship is not exhausted in its action between direct participants, but to some extent has an “absolute” effect in relation to other persons.

The article extends the cycle of works on the problem of sovereign immunity in English law. The author assumes that vagueness between absolute sovereign immunity doctrine and due process in English law leads to the change of interpretation of “The King Can Do No Wrong” doctrine. The Crown Proceedings Act 1947 was adopted in order to preserve the fundamental principles of the British constitution and implement separate grounds for claims against the British sovereign. This part of the research reveals why the absolute doctrine of sovereign immunity was replaced by a restrictive approach in the light of adoption of The Crown Proceedings Act and judicial review in The Porto Alexandre (1920) and The Philippine Admiral (1973) precedents.

From the standpoint of the system-activity approach, the place of lie in the structure of forensic cognition was considered. The first of two related articles explores the characteristics of lying as the object of forensic cognition. According to the concept of a lie as a communication of information, committed in order to mislead someone, the dynamic structure of forensic knowledge was analyzed. The author concluded that the study of a lie in the process of this activity can pursue the task of proving the circumstances of the commission of a lie, as well as overcoming it.