Articles

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.

The article is about the organizational basis of the innovative scientific and technological centers activity (ISTC) and its legal forms: 1) the organizational structure of the ISTC established in the law; 2) organizational relationship between persons involved in the project implementation, defining as a person’s special legal status depending on the ISTC management company’s decision (either on granting the status of a project participant to a legal entity, or on concluding an agreement on the implementation of scientific and technological activities with a person without the project participant status). The author, considering the elements of management in the ISTC organizational structure, concludes that there are differences in management relations in the ISTC and in a corporation. The article defines features of the ISTC management system and management subjects’ legal status: the management company — a joint-stock company endowed with public legal powers and carrying out general management of the ISTC activities, and the fund — a non-profit organization that acts as the owner or tenant of the property, which is part of the ISTC, as well as making strategic decisions on the ISTC creation and functioning. Analyzing the organizational relationship, the author highlights the legal consequences of the organizational relationship existence between the persons involved in the project implementation.

Fundamental changes in the social and state system after the revolutionary events of 1917 initiated a series of large-scale changes in social relations and legal institutions, which could not but affect the penal system inherited by Soviet Russia from the Russian Empire. In the first months after the establishment of Soviet power, continuity with the pre-revolutionary order of organizing places of detention was maintained, subsequently, as Soviet legislation developed and the penitentiary system was reformed, the Soviet penal system began to acquire its own characteristic features. The article analyzes the conditions and processes of formation and formation of the penitentiary system of the Soviet state with the involvement of archival materials, legal acts and scientific works, examines their organizational structure, the composition of the governing bodies and their interdepartmental struggle, as well as the types of places of detention, conditions of detention, rights and duties of prisoners. The relevance of the study of the Soviet system of execution of punishments lies in the consideration of the contradictions of its development in the light, on the one hand, of the features of the historically revolutionary character inherent in these events, and on the other hand, the identified need to inherit some of the institutions of this system that existed under previous governments. In the current conditions of the ongoing reorganization of the correctional system after the collapse of the USSR, taking into account such experience can also be relevant and useful for further reforms.

The article presents the problematic issues of anti-corruption regulation to prevent conflicts of interest when a former state and municipal employee is engaged in activities carried out for remuneration as a member of a collegial body of management or control of legal entities. The author points out the gaps in the anti-corruption legislation in terms of the lack of any control procedures in order to prevent a possible conflict of interest when nominating as a candidate and electing a former state or municipal employee to the management or control bodies of a business entity, in respect of which during his official activities exercised certain functions of state, municipal (administrative) management, including control or supervision, and receiving remuneration for work in such bodies of a business entity. An analysis of the risks of a conflict of public and private interests with the participation of former state or municipal employees in the management and control bodies of commercial and non-profit organizations is given. Possible solutions to this problem are proposed on the basis of the current system of the procedure for resolving a possible conflict of interest when concluding an employment contract or a civil law contract for the performance of work (services) with a former state or municipal employee, taking into account the specifics of corporate relations in business entities.

In recent years, the process of giving the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation additional powers to overcome the consequences of emergency situations (such as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection COVID‑19 or the introduction of illegal (“sanctions”) restrictive economic measures against the Russian Federation) has been actively developing. This allotment, in particular, was carried out by Presidential Ukases No. 239 of April 2, 2020 and No. 121 of March 16, 2022. The author believes that the trend indicated by them is a new one in the development of Russian federalism. At the same time, it should be noted that the measures taken in 2022 to ensure socio-economic stability were not limited to expanding the rights of the heads of the subjects of the Russian Federation, but also provided for a number of other measures that change the design of the system of relations between the federal center and the subjects of the Russian Federation. The article analyzes the content of the above-mentioned measures and activities from the perspective of the theory of state functions, they are regarded as manifestations of the dynamics of the federal function of the state.

The relevance of this study lies in the fact that, despite many years of research on the relationship between man and the state, problems in this part continue to persist, a panacea for establishing a complete understanding between these actors has not been found. This article is an attempt to answer some questions through the prism of the analysis of the constitutional and legal status of subjects based on the author’s theory of their relationship. This work is devoted to the study of the constitutional and legal status of a person, the state as a whole, the Russian Federation and state bodies from the standpoint of the theory of the correlation of subjects of law developed by the author, the essence of which is to establish and study absolutely all relations of subjects, including ineffective influence by virtue of powers, rights or duties that do not involve active actions, for subsequent legal regulation and accounting of what is really happening in life. In the preparation of this material, methods of analysis and synthesis were mainly used, since in order to consider the connections between the subjects, it was necessary to study each of them separately in order to come to the desired conclusions after the subsequent unification. A large volume of the invoice is taken from the scientific literature, in connection with which it is obvious to use the method of expert assessments. The result of the work done is to establish the true position of the subjects listed above in the system of their relationship with each other, which can be the basis for subsequent management decisions, the transformation of constitutional and legal regulation or further research by scientists interested in similar issues.