Articles

The communication rights enshrined in Part 1 of Article 5 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany — freedom of expression, freedom of information, press, broadcasting, and cinema (Kommunikationsgrundrechte) are of constitutive importance for German democracy, since the process of forming of public opinion, which is important for the functioning of democratic institutions, depends on the level of their guarantee. At the same time, due to the special persuasiveness of the audiovisual form of information presentation, broadcasting is the most significant means of influence. Public service broadcasting (öffentlich-rechtlicher Rundfunk) is central to the German broadcasting system, while the role of private broadcasters is secondary. The decisive importance of public broadcasting in shaping the political opinion of German citizens presupposes the existence of sufficient and effective constitutional and legal guarantees that exclude the instrumentalization of this institution by the state, industry, and other influential public groups. The article, taking into account the historical context and using examples from the legislation and practice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, analyzes these guarantees, and also describes the basic constitutional and legal principles of the functioning of the broadcasting system in Germany. As a conclusion, a set of the basic essential characteristics of the German model of public broadcasting is fixed, which might be used for further critical consideration of this institution.

The events taking place in Central and Eastern Europe (primarily in Ukraine and Latvia) indicate a serious problem facing believers in these States, and are also a significant challenge to the adopted approach regarding the right to autonomy of religious associations, affecting and having significance for the entire European continent. Currently, the state authorities of Ukraine and Latvia are taking measures aimed at significantly limiting the activities of religious associations that have historically been in church-canonical connection with the Russian Orthodox Church. It seems that the actions of the State authorities of these countries can be characterized as excessive interference in the autonomy of religious organizations guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and the Republic of Latvia, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. Meanwhile, the ECHR has formed a stable practice defending the right to autonomy of religious associations in the states of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as guaranteeing protection from unjustified state interference in the internal affairs of the church. In this article, the author attempts not only to analyze the precedents already considered in the practice of the ECHR, but also to predict a possible Court decision regarding the actions of state authorities of Ukraine and Latvia on the way from politics to law.

Using examples of understanding the nature of constitutional principles and the application of the comparative legal method to the study of constitutionalism in the states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the article shows the possibilities of the methodology of combining the techniques of “calculating” thinking and “comprehending reflection” proposed by M. Heidegger in research activities. In particular, the structure of the content of constitutional and legal principles (semantic core and periphery) and their dual regulatory impact on social relations (as basic guidelines for the activities of public authorities and additional tools for the protection of rights — along with detailed norms) is considered. The importance of conscious perception of the national experience of constitutional and legal construction as a basis for a more accurate choice of the direction of comparative legal research is shown by the example of the approach of Chinese authors. The nature of the “trap of simple choice” is revealed in relation to constitutional and legal values and paradigms of the development of constitutionalism. In particular, by limiting oneself to the ideological alternative of choosing between socialist and liberal values, the researcher can avoid understanding the true nature of constitutionalism. The main aspects of the movement of the CEE countries towards “new constitutionalism”, significant for the national doctrine and practice, are presented. The commentary and assessment of the transformation of attitudes towards liberal constitutional values in CEE (from full acceptance to selective rejection) are given, which should be taken into account in connection with the transformations of Russian constitutional law.

The article discusses the features of teaching municipal law at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. This was influenced by various factors, the central place among which is the dynamics of ideas about the essence of local self-government. The issues of teaching municipal law at Moscow University are traditionally included in the range of tasks of the department related to the organization of state power — the department of state law, Soviet construction, now — the department of constitutional and municipal law. The teachers of the department have made and continue to make to the formation of local self-government and Russian statehood. Devoting their work to the problems of the organization and activities of local authorities, the teachers of the department, on the one hand, maintained the continuity of scientific views, strengthening the traditions of the national state-law school, and on the other hand, they created the foundation for future state-legal (constitutional-legal) transformations, sensitively responding to the requirements of the time, and sometimes ahead of them. Special attention is drawn to the fact that the issues of teaching municipal law at Moscow University are traditionally included in the range of tasks of the department related to the organization of state power — the department of state law and Soviet construction, now — the depart- ment of constitutional and municipal law. The paper points to the contribution that the teachers of the department have made and continue to make to the formation of local self-government and Russian statehood as a whole.

In this article, the author considers the problems associated with the modern formulation and implementation of the principle of unity of public authorities, state and municipal. Particular attention is paid to the latently existing public authority and the changes that need to be made to regional and federal legislation. The emphasis is on the implementation of social values and guidelines for the principles of organization of state and municipal authorities at different stages of state building. Based on the varying principles of Soviet and modern, it is shown that there is a lot of invariable characterizing the identity of Russian society. The search for unifying principles of interaction is submitted for discussion — the unity of public interests, based not on the principle of supremacy, but on the basis of weighing different interests, that is, finding a balance between the conflicting state and municipal. Such an approach will allow us to renew our perception through a synthesis of what is permissible, what is desired, and what should be.

The category of constitutional identity is now confidently used in the science of constitutional law and in resolving some disputes, but it remains not completely clear. The article is aimed at identifying the content of this category and the possibility of its application in practice. The article presents the meanings of the term “identity” and checks whether this term can be used in constitutional law, and if so, in what sense. Possible ways of finding the features of constitutional identity in the texts of constitutions (in preambles, among the foundations of the constitutional system, or provisions protected from change) are shown. The final conclusions concern the limits of the application of constitutional identity in constitutional disputes. It seems that constitutional identity can be used to resolve constitutional conflicts only if two conditions are met: fixing the features of constitutional identity, defined precisely as such (1), and carried out previously, not at the time of the decision, but in advance (2). It is these two conditions that will provide the necessary predictability and validity of decisions, in the adoption of which the category of constitutional identity was used for argumentation. Otherwise (if these conditions are not observed for whatever reason), the constitutional review body should, as far as possible, avoid using the category “constitutional identity” as an argument in resolving disputes.

The present-day Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law at the Faculty of Law of the M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University inherits everything that is related to its areas of activity and even its name. In 1863, the University Statute established a separate chair at Moscow University to teach state law.

On February 18, 2023, Nikolay Leonidovich Peshin, the Head of the Department of Administrative Law at the Law Faculty of Moscow State University and a member of the Editorial Board of the journal "Bulletin of Moscow University. Series 11. Law," celebrated his 50th birthday.

The review presents the manuscript of the textbook “Criminalistics”, which is being prepared for publication. In the manuscript, the authors of the textbook, based on the established traditional approaches to criminology textbooks that have developed in Russian science, consistently present the material that is conceptually linked by the table of contents of the publication. It pays special attention not only to the already established and well-established educational knowledge, but also to the knowledge relevant to the current situation in which the law enforcement agencies of Russia function. Consistently in the sections of the criminalistics system in the textbook, the issues of criminalistic identification, forecasting, situational modeling and the basics of information and methodological use of criminalistics data in other types of law enforcement activities are revealed. The textbook reflects almost all the institutes of technical support of the investigation, including the issues of genetic identification of the individual, the study of computer information, the basics of the use of “artificial” intelligence in the investigation of crimes, expert activity in the investigation. Special attention is paid to the tactics of verbal and non-verbal investigative actions. For the first time, the issue of establishing causal relationships in the process of investigating crimes is considered. In the system of private forensic techniques, the authors have included both traditional and current methods of investigating crimes against public security and state power, terrorist and extremist orientation, official and official crimes, as well as crimes committed in the field of computer information.

The paper highlights the publication of the first comprehensive edition on the history of domestic consitutional justice. An attempt to reconstruct the prehistory of domestic constitutional normative control supported by a profound source base is one of the values of the retrospection section (until 2001). The paper marks two opposite interpretations of constitutional control — constitutional (value-based) and functional (pragmatic). The ambivalent understanding of the nature of constitutional jurisdiction results in groundless, both conceptually and empirically, reproaches of constitutional justice for politicization. The chapters on the current stage provide both less properly justified and contradictory theses than those expressed in retrospection section chapters. Lack of strength of the expressed arguments adversely affect the methodological integrity and conceptual unity of the entire text.