Articles

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.

Foreign legal and political science notes the positive effect from the interpenetration of the institutions of direct and representative democracy, especially by way of modern digital technologies. The key forms of such interpenetration have been and remain the popular (civil) legislative initiative and public hearings (public discussion of bills). The experience of crowdsourcing in carrying out legislative work, the involvement of citizens in the work of parliamentarians show a multiple increase in the level of citizens’ trust in the institutions of parliamentary democracy, which is confirmed by foreign studies. According to the Levada Center in Russia since 2015 the level of disapproval about activities of the Russian State Duma has exceeded the level of approval and since this time the level of disapproval continue to grow up. For this reason, it is highly important for Russia to research the experience of those countries, that have managed to change the predominantly negative attitude of citizens towards parliamentary institutions to predominantly positive. For Russia, where, according to the Levada Center, the level of disapproval of the State Duma has exceeded the level of approval since 2015, the study of the experience of countries that have managed to change the predominantly negative

attitude of citizens towards parliamentary institutions to predominantly positive is of high importance. The author comes to the conclusion that in Russia it is necessary to revive the popular legislative initiative at the federal level, including through the introduction of the institution of the legislative proposal. Secondly, the author proposes to legislatively regulate the possibility of submitting legislative proposals to the State Duma, including by expanding the functionality of the Russian Public Initiative Internet portal (roi.ru). Thirdly, the author considers it expedient to create in Russia an electronic platform for interaction between the parliament and civil society “Electronic Parliament of Russia”, which allows, through electronic democracy, to increase public confidence in the activities of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

In the context of the information society and the formation of the digital economy, it is relevant to study the legal support for the turnover of personal data at the corporate level in order to develop proposals for improving the mechanism for processing and protecting personal data. The article analyzes the general issues that are previously studied by the administration before starting the processing of personal data, on which the decision on the readiness to work with personal data and the intensity of the use of internal corporate forces and means depends. The content of the concept of ensuring the security of personal data is disclosed. The analysis of the regulatory framework and a systematic approach to the study of the rules governing the collection, processing, storage and use of personal data in organizations allowed the author to formulate the conceptual provisions of the methodology, the content of which is complex measures of an organizational, legal and technical nature used to ensure the security of personal data in organizations. The methodology structurally reveals the content of the main corporate acts and provides recommendations for their improvement when working with personal data in the context of digitalization.