Articles

The article deals with the problems of criminal liability of a medical worker for careless crimes committed in the field of professional activity in the context of two divergent trends in the criminal policy pursued by the state. The main attention of the authors is focused on the issues of the statute of limitations of the criminal prosecution of a medical worker. As a result of the humanization of the criminal law, the statute of limitations for the crimes of medical workers with a fatal outcome has been significantly reduced, which does not allow the investigative and judicial authorities to perform the task of a comprehensive and objective investigation and trial of the relevant criminal cases. The complexity of criminal cases on the crimes of medical workers, the need to appoint forensic medical examinations, including additional and repeated ones, do not allow conducting the necessary investigative actions and considering the case by the court within the time limits provided for by the criminal law. The authors come to the conclusion that it is necessary to transfer the composition of the negligent infliction of death on a person by a medical worker to the category of a medium-gravity crime and, accordingly, to increase the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution for this crime. According to the authors, this will contribute to strengthening the criminal law protection of the rights of victims and create conditions for the proper investigation and trial of criminal cases in this category of crimes of medical workers.

The article analyzes the problems and features of the modern stage of development of popular sovereignty and the constitutional novelty of the unity of state and municipal public authorities. The tendencies and possibilities of achieving political agreement between the state and the people are considered. Attention is drawn to the peculiarities of the independence of local self-government in the formation of local self-government bodies, in the interaction of local self-government bodies and public authorities in the performance of public functions and services. A proposal for the development of the effectiveness of interaction between public authorities is being considered. Special attention is paid to the need to overcome the deficit of democracy by limiting state expansion and increasing the role of municipal public authorities. The urgent problem of the necessity and possibility of balancing the competing values of democracy and economic efficiency is brought up for discussion. Suggestions are made: constitution of the principle of subsidiarity; on the establishment of interrelated indicators of the effectiveness of public authorities; the development of a unified system of statistical accounting, which makes it possible to represent the unity of public authorities as the backbone of the Russian statehood; on vesting the All-Russian Association of Municipal Formations (OKMO) with the right of legislative initiative. The unity of the state and municipal public authorities presupposes the unity of goals and the development of the participation of local communities in the management of not only local, but also state affairs.

The review is devoted to the publication in 2021 in the publishing house “Statute” of the sixth volume of the Code of Justinian, which is regarded as a great event in the field of legal science and education. The review gives a high positive assessment of the presented work, the appearance of which indicates the opportunity to study the rich heritage of Roman legal thought more deeply and comprehensively, both for beginners in the study of civil law, and for those who are wise in the knowledge and experience of representatives of the science of civil law.

Experience has shown that the need to resolve some political challenge often encourages the authorities to establish and/or apply procedural rules of constitutional law on an ad hoc basis. For example, special procedures can be designed to resolve a particular situation often bypassing existing procedural rules of constitutional law. Paradoxically, such actions are not considered as a violation, even if their legitimacy had been challenged before the court. The question is whether such a deviation from the existing procedural order can be justified? In seeking the answer to this question, the article attempts, firstly, to summarize and classify the relevant global constitutional practice of circumvention of formal procedural rules on an ad hoc basis and, secondly, to identify its patterns. The findings could form the basis of a new rational approach providing a flexible response to the possible inadequacy of existing constitutional procedures to address unpredictable challenges with due respect for the rule of law.

The article concerns two proverbial divisions of foundations recognized in the German Law, that have become relevant for the Russian Law in connection with the implementation of the institution of hereditary foundations, namely the division of foundations into private and public and the division of foundations into inter vivos and mortis causa. The analysis of the relevant classifications and the underlying criteria is of interest from the comparative law perspective and may provide some unified understanding of the notions, ambiguously interpreted in the Russian scholar and professional community. As a result of the research, it is concluded that in the German Law private and public benefit foundations, as well as inter vivos and mortis causa foundations are types of the single institution of foundation and do not constitute separate legal forms of legal persons with their own civil law status. In this connection, the key differences of this approach from the one adopted in the Russian legislation are defined and the possible path to development of the institute of foundation in the Russian Law is established.

From the standpoint of the system-activity approach, the place of lie in the structure of forensic cognition was considered. The second of two related articles explores the characteristics of lying as method and result of forensic cognition. A distinction was made between misleading as a method of criminalistic cognition and other categories of investigator’s lie. Two types of cognitive tasks of the first category of the lie were considered, according to which two situations were distinguished. The first one was a “diagnostic lie”, which is used to check some investigative theories. The second one was a lie, which aims to neutralize opposition to the investigation. The main ways in which the investigator committed lies were also analyzed. It was substantiated that, although the result of the investigation may be aimed at misleading the judge, this lie does not apply to notion of criminalistic cognition. At the same time, such actions of an investigator, which are illegal, are of significant interest for the forensic science.

The article analyzes the influence of classical and romantic cultural trends on the processes of genesis and interpretation of law. It is stated that a purely rational-classical perception of the phenomenon of law is an echo of Hegelianism that left a deep imprint on the perception of law and is not sufficiently justified. The classicist interpretation of legal reality is not sufficient to ensure proper personal autonomy and can hinder the manifestation of all the diversity of spiritual life. This, in turn, can lead to apathy, lack of will — the rules of law begin to be observed mechanically and are torn away from their moral source. It is argued that the conceptual justification of law as related to the sphere of a romantic, rather than scientific and rationalist worldview, will enrich the understanding of legal phenomena in terms of recognizing the creative component of legal reality. The idea that the development of the romantic component of law will help to develop a system legal thinking is upheld. This, in turn, will realize the potential of law in the cultivation of personal autonomy by deautomatizing “acquired” models of thinking and behavior in favor of a creatively critical attitude to a purely positivistic interpretation of law. Ultimately, legal romanticism, as opposed to formally standardized interpretations of freedom, is intended to provide a harmonious combination of individualism and creative activity of subjects with collective and inert-passive ones.

This article is the first part of essay discussing the issue of political responsibility of the Russian Provisional Government. The author shows that violent overthrow of monarchial order didn`t bring to embodiment of ideas of liberal groups about establishment of political responsibility of the government before parliament. The Russian Provisional Government considered that it can bear responsibility for its decisions only before the people, and therefore refused to consider itself responsible before the State Duma. Attempts of the Mensheviks and Socialists Revolutionaries to compel it to bear responsibility before Pre-parliament were also unsuccessful. Right up to its overthrow the Russian Provisional Government successfully counteracted the attempts of right-wing and left-wing political groups to establish the political control of any representative body over it. However, although the Russian Provisional Government remained irresponsible, it`s members bore responsibility before the political parties, which delegated them in the Government. Contrary to expectations of the liberal groups, period between the February and the October revolutions was the time of formation of a principle of party responsibility of the officials. The first article of essay embraces the period from March 1 to beginning of July 1917.