Articles

The article analyzes the peculiarity of the violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules in the metropolis in the criminal law context. Various approaches to the concept of “megapolis” in the context of the Russian legal reality are considered through the allocation of its properties and features, as well as differentiation with the term “agglomeration”. The “criminological paradoxes” of crime in a megalopolis are deduced, among which the highest possible rates with relatively low relative crime rates and a reduction in crime when its limit is reached, and the reasons for their occurrence are called. Examples of application in judicial practice in the period from 2011 to 2022 of Article 236 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are given, in particular, focusing on the crime scene to identify the features of the geography of violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules. The specifics of responsibility in establishing violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules in the legislation of the Russian Federation, presented not only by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but also by the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation and the subjects of the Russian Federation, are noted. The article analyzes the practice of bringing to criminal responsibility for committing violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules of persons with a new coronavirus infection COVID-19. Based on the decisions of law enforcement, the authors conclude that violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules are more and more often committed in small towns and villages, and the violations themselves are mostly established in the field of catering.

The article covers the issue of the criteria that the legislator can use when choosing acts punishable in the administrative-legal order for the construction of criminal-legal norms with administrative prejudice. It is shown that the line between administrative offenses and criminal acts is blurred (including due to the expanding use of administrative prejudice by the legislator). Historical examples of the construction of compositions with prejudice in domestic legislation are given, possible reasons for the absence of such norms in the first years of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 1996. Decisions of the Constitutional Court dated 10.02.2017 No. 2-P and dated 08.04.2021 No. 11-P are analyzed from the point of view of such criteria. Conclusions are formulated and substantiated about the relevance and effectiveness of “objective” public danger as a basis for criminalization, as well as about the incorrectness and danger of some doctrinal and law enforcement proposals to evaluate the dangerous inclinations of a person as a basis for criminalizing acts using administrative prejudice. It seems that the use of “subjective” social danger in the construction of elements of crimes is contrary to the principles of legality, guilt and justice. Its use brings the legislative trend towards the expansion of administrative prejudice closer to the provisions of the theory of the dangerous state of the individual, which is based on completely different principles.

The article examines the problem of errors made by the investigative and judicial authorities in the qualification of crimes considered in a special procedure for making a court decision (Chapter 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). The author takes as a basis the definition of the qualification of crimes and qualification errors by the professor of Moscow University N.F.Kuznetsova. The contribution of N.F.Kuznetsova in the development of the problem of qualifying errors, which consists, in particular, in considering the corpus delicti as the main tool for qualifying a crime, in classifying the types of qualifying errors, in the proposed methodology for determining the number of these errors. In the main part of the article, using the materials of judicial practice, individual law enforcement errors made in the qualification of crimes considered in a special order are analyzed. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the largest number of overturned sentences is associated with the wrong choice of the criminal law norm or its incorrect interpretation. Particular attention is paid to the problem of qualifying crimes, the composition of which includes the so-called evaluative features, the content of which is not disclosed in the criminal law and is established by the law enforcement officer depending on the actual circumstances of a particular criminal case. The author of the article believes that in such cases, priority should be given to the general procedure for considering a criminal case. Conducting a full-fledged judicial investigation, although it does not guarantee the correct final qualification of the crime committed and will not completely eliminate qualification errors, however, it can minimize them to a large extent.

In the article, based on the understanding of N.F.Kuznetsova’s category “guilty of a person” as “committing a crime by a person”, “criminality of an act committed by a person” is solved, among other things, the applied problem of choosing between competing norms of the Special Part of the Criminal Law, when the objective side of the act is fully described in different norms of the Special Part, the ratio of which as a general and it is impossible to install a special one. The use of a purely procedural presumption in dubio pro reo in the substantive aspect, that is, in resolving qualifying problems, is substantiated: since the recognition of a person committing a crime is not only proof of the actual circumstances of the act, but also its qualification, that is, “establishing compliance in the deed with the signs of a socially dangerous act on the grounds of the corpus delicti provided for in the norms of the General and Special Parts of the Criminal Code, with a conclusion on the application of one or another article of the Code”, the above constitutional provision (Article 49 of the Constitution) should be interpreted not only in the procedural, but also in the substantive aspect. With this in mind and proceeding from N.F.Kuznetsova’s category of guilt a) the conclusion about the fundamental possibility of using the rule “irremovable doubts about the guilt of the accused are interpreted in favor of the accused” as a tool for criminal legal qualification, and b) recognizing the presence of defects in legislative technique, due to which various criminal law norms infringing on one and the same direct object, similarly describe the corpus delicti to be imputed to the guilty person, it was proposed when deciding on which article to qualify the phrases expressed publicly or posted on leaflets posted in public places, aimed at convincing other persons of what is needed, in particular, kill representatives of a certain racial, social, etc. groups precisely because the latter belong to such a group, choose a norm with a milder sanction, which is Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, if the act was committed without signs qualifying the relevant act.

The special issue of the Bulletin of Moscow University, ending in 2022, is dedicated to the anniversary date — the 95th anniversary of the birth of the head of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology of the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, laureate of the USSR State Prize, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, Honored Worker of Higher Education, Honored Professor of Moscow State University, member of the International Association of Criminal Law Ninel Fedorovna Kuznetsova (1927-2010).

The consistent autonomization of Russia through the mediation of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities (hereinafter the Commissariat, People’s Commissariat or Narcomnats) offered priceless experience by 1924 in creating a unique form of the Soviet state unity and a reason for come back to its analysis in 2022. The active transformation of Russian Unitarianism entailed the enrichment of Soviet positive law: in January 1918, the Soviet government provided legal guarantees to the people to engage in «law-making». While systematizing the accumulated material the idea of writing a federal code appeared. The existing state entities needed, in addition to the Constitution, a different legal basis for development. The world’s first federal Code could bring legal certainty to the organization of the form of the state unity, which would give predictability of state development and, of course, greater security. The whole world could see that the RSFSR had become a guarantor of political stability. The Code could make it possible to combine the free “law-making” of people in the choice of autonomy with the state regulation of this process.

The research is oriented towards the study of basic issues concerning the correlation between information and communication technologies (ICT) in the national justice and traditional grounds of its administration. The author researches the effects of implementing information technologies into justice from the viewpoint of constitutional legal status and its correspondence with the procedural status of a trial participant. The transformation of justice in the context of digitalization from the viewpoint of its availability to interested parties is being analyzed. 

The article also defines issues with the implementation of traditional adjudication principles in the Russian Federation. The researcher draws attention to the lack of a unified approach to the implementation of information technologies in procedural legislation and legislation on judicial organization. The science article reveals in detail legal regulation in the sphere under consideration as well as certain doctrinal approaches, analyzes materials of court practice, provides reasoning for the viable development of uniform alteration of procedural legislation and legislation on judicial organization in the field of “digital” justice development. A number of suggestions and conclusions over the correlation between technologization and traditional grounds in the modern system of justice is made. 

The author proposes for the development of the judicial law concept as one of the mechanisms for upgrading relevant legislation in the sphere in question.

For a long time, the Russian Federation has held the title of one of the leading space powers. However, space activities in Russia are associated exclusively with the activities of the state corporation, and the space activities of private companies are usually not considered due to their insignificance. The aim of the article is to analyze the legal regime of space activities in Russian legislation. This article examines the issues of the presence in the Russian legal system of norms favorable to entrepreneurial space activities. The author sees the problem in the incorrect perception of the term “commercialization” by the legislator. The paradox of the absence of competitive Russian entrepreneurs on the world and the Russian space markets is considered. The reasons for the lack of understanding of the necessity and non-acceptance of norms aimed at stimulating competitive commercial space activities are revealed. The author analyzes two draft laws “On entrepreneurial activities in the exploration and use of outer space” (1999) and “On remote sensing of the Earth from space” (2021). An analogy is drawn with measures to stimulate space entrepreneurship abroad. An example of developing commercialization of commercial activities in the US legislation is given. The author describes the absence in the Russian legislation of the possibility for public-private partnership and concession in relation to space technology and its infrastructure. The analysis presented in this article allows us to conclude that there are no legal institutions that stimulate, encourage and support the space industry entrepreneurs in the Russian legislation.

The article is a continuation of the previously published work “Legal foundations of state environmental management in a digital society: Terms and definitions”. As it was noted, the issues of environmental protection, improving the efficiency of public administration in the environmental sphere have been elevated to the rank of national goals, the way to achieve which, according to official estimates, is seen, inter alia, in the introduction of digital technologies. This article examines the issues of methods of legal regulation of public relations in the field of state environmental management. The question of the transformation of the ways of the influence of law as a social regulator on public relations in the conditions of digitalization is considered. The paper attempts to identify trends in the transformation of the method of legal regulation of public relations in the field of state environmental management in a digital society. As such, the following are noted: expansion of “digitized” spheres of state environmental management, reduction of discretionary powers in the field of state environmental management in the context of digitalization, change in the subject composition of managerial legal relations, strengthening of the principles of dispositivity of the method of legal regulation of relations in the field of state environmental management, fragmentation of environmental legislation in terms of regulation of public environmental relations, including in the field of state environmental management.

The author insists on the need to overcome the approach that has developed in Russian constitutional practice and doctrine, which considers legal entities to be “inauthentic” subjects of constitutional law, whose rights are somehow conditioned by their connection with a person. An association (legal entity) is an independent subject of law; the need to secure constitutional rights for it is due not to the protection of the rights of its participants, but to the protection of the association as the most important social actor in modern society. The category «legal entity» is necessary to confirm its compliance with the criteria established by law to ensure the fairness of social institutions. This makes it possible to begin the formation of the constitutional rights (and obligations) of social associations (legal entities) taking into account the goals of its creation, the specifics of the scope of its activities, etc.