Articles

The article reveals peculiarities of implementation by local self-government powers in the sphere of housing and communal services, taking into account the latest changes in the federal legislation. As it is known, on the one hand municipalities are forced to finance constantly worn-out communal infrastructure (which often reaches up to 20 % of the total local budget), while tariff regulation in this area does not belong to exclusive competence of the municipality. On the other hand, the sphere of housing and communal services is a type of so-called local monopoly, since residents of municipal territories can not choose a provider of services, and this, objectively, does not encourage municipalities to improve their quality. The article examines the foreign experience of organization of housing and communal services at the level of municipalities, suggests solutions that can be applied at the level of local government in the Russian Federation. The issues related to the organization of accomplishment of the territory of the municipality to fulfill the requirements established by the norms of the Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation are considered separately.

In the article they are considered actual legal questions connected with evolution of development of model of extradition in the scope of international cooperation on criminal cases, analyzed classic and modern models of institution of extradition including Anglo-American models, continental model (European) and model of institution of extradition in the scope of international organization and their ability to serve of use of criminal proceedings, historic development of given institution. It is noted that classic model loses its significance in modern period of time, in legal systems the questions of extradition of persons in this or that degree have mixed character. It is suggested the idea on introduction universal model of extradition by accordance and unification norms of criminal and criminal procedural legislation including lessen unnatural obstacles (barriers) and speeding the process of extradition in the scope of international cooperation on criminal cases.

The article deals with the historical and legal analysis of the punishment (its essence, purposes and principles of appointment) in colonial and post-colonial India, the main criminal-penological models, and the development of certain types of punishments and their legislative regulation in the Indian Penal Code of 1860.

The article analyzes the model of possession and the methods of its protection provided in the draft Civil code of the Russian Empire, compiled in the late XIX — early XX century.

The article is dedicated to the memory of Alla Viktorovna Pashkovskaya, Candidate of Law, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The author tells about the life and creative path of her Teacher and demonstrates her view on solving a number of controversial issues of criminal law, some of which did not have time to find their reflection in her scientific publications.

The article is a continuation of a number of scientific studies on the criminalization of financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as a legal and financial response of countries to the recommendations of the intergovernmental commission on financial monitoring — Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering or as is customary in our Russian-speaking environment — The Group for the Development of Financial Measures to Combat Money Laundering, which was the developer of International Standards on countering the Legalization of Criminal Proceeds and the Financing of terrorism, the Proliferation of Weapons of mass Destruction, the recommendations fall into the interdisciplinary field of international public, civil, contract law and the sciences of criminal law and criminalistics cycles. At the same time, they have international regulations and, accordingly, implementations into the national legislation of the participating countries of the anti-washing system. 

The regional group presented by the type of Group for the Development of Financial Measures to Combat Money Laundering includes some countries of the former Soviet Union — Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as foreign countries India and China. 

The process of criminalizing the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is currently being updated as a novelty in the field of anti-money laundering, terrorist financing, and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and involves the development of a certain set of legal measures and tools.

One of the main categories of forensic expertise is object. Our article conceptualizes this category concerning the forensic authorship examination of text borrowings. We model a system of speech objects that arise when text is illegally borrowed (plagiarism, copy-paste) and should be investigated during the forensic examination of speech. From the standpoint of criminalistic identification theory, we describe the process and mechanism of borrowing (copy-paste) in various situations: rewriting or retyping someone else’s text manually, scanning a document or part of it from paper, borrowing in digital space using the copy + paste method. For the last method, the most commonly used, we consider in detail the “roles” of objects in borrowing and their significance for the identification procedure. The article demonstrates that the totality of compositions and texts is interconnected due to the reflection of textual material. According to general rules of criminalistic identification, objects are divided into verifiable and searched, identifying and identifiable. The presenting model of the objects system for the first time provides a criminalistically adequate understanding of the essence of borrowing. That is the basis for a future forensic methodology that will reliably establish the presence or absence of text borrowing.

In the course of a large-scale reform of civil legislation in 2015, the institute of assurances of representations appeared in Russian law. This construction was implemented from the foreign order, which gave rise to a lot of discussion issues in the doctrine and real law enforcement problems. Law enforcement problems are objectively conditioned by the fact that continental ideas about torts, liability, damages do not correspond in everything to common law approaches, on the model of which the norm on assurances was introduced into Russian law. The new norm of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation — Article 431.2 provides a bona fide business entity with a wide arsenal to protect the violated right caused by misrepresentation, regardless of the recognition of the contract as invalid or non-concluded. However, in order for such statements of fact as representations to function successfully and serve as a convenient risk management tool, a number of practical and theoretical issues need to be resolved. In this article the author considers one of the most important law enforcement issues in the light of the new institute of representations — the nature of liability for misleading statements. Analyzing foreign judicial practice and taking into account the original legislative construction of the norm 431.2 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the author concludes that the “positive” methodology of calculating damages is preferable for the stability of business turnover. The article also touches upon the controversial issue of forfeit as a means of creditor’s protection in case of misrepresentation, and practical recommendations are also given.

Motion capture technologies are widely used in the creation of audiovisual works and computer games. During the application of these technologies, either the performances of performing artists as objects of related rights, or the movements and facial expressions of people as intangible benefits protected by the general norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation can be used. It is important to understand the quality in which human movements and facial expressions are used, since it depends on which norms of civil law are to be applied. The essence of the legal protection of movements and facial expressions of a person that are not related to the performance of a role, literary or artistic work; circus, variety, puppet show, folklore expressions is based solely on the concept of protecting the personality of this person. If the emotions and thoughts of the character are expressed in the movements and facial expressions of the performer, the meaning of the work, circus, variety, puppet number is conveyed, then the protection of this performance is due to the artistic activity of this person and, therefore, protection is carried out in a different legal regime, the regime of related law. The different legal nature of the movements and facial expressions used in the creation of an audiovisual work and a computer game determines different types of rights that must be respected by manufacturers of such complex objects, and different contractual structures that ensure the legitimate use of the above-mentioned intangible benefits. In addition, when creating audiovisual works and computer games, imitations of movements and the performer’s voice can be used. In cases where the use of his voice and movements is not related to his performance, they should be protected as intangible benefits based on the general provisions of civil law. However, when these objects are associated with the performance of an artist, it is advisable to ensure their protection within the framework of the Institute of Related Rights by including the relevant provisions in Part 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

The inclusion of social security law in the sphere of public law today causes certain difficulties. On the one hand, the State nature of social security law, the provision of security from public funds and on behalf of the State speaks in favor of the publicity of social security law. On the other hand, the presence of private entities in social security legal relations as persons providing security, the desire to organize legal relations on the basis of private law structures, makes the issue of publicity of social security law no longer so unambiguous. 

The situation is aggravated by the desire of some scientists to give the method of legal regulation of social security law an imperative-dispositive character, and the branches of law, respectively, a private-public nature. It should be noted that the mechanism of interaction between imperative and dispositive law is currently undefined. The uncertainty of the mechanism of such interaction entails the need to consider social security law within the public or private sphere of law. The author does not consider himself one of the conformists in this matter and considers social security law as a branch of public law. The rationale for this position is based on the conclusions about the impossibility of using private legal structures, about the public interest and the importance of subjective public rights for the right of social security.