Articles

The review of the scientific conference dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Professor V.Y. Koldin provides information about the speakers and the topics of their reports. The variety of topics indicates the versatility of the analysis of the scientist's work. The discussion focused on the influence of the professor's teachings on the development of criminalistiks science and forensic examination in Russia over the entire period; the significance of the fundamental collective works of criminalistiks scientists, forensic doctors and specialists in other expert fields published under his editorship and with the authorship participation in 2002 "Material Evidence. Information Technologies of Procedural Proof" and in 2007 "Forensic Science. Information Technologies of Proof", as well as his monograph "Forensic Identification" (2002), published in 2019 in English; the problems of personal identification when examining numerous remains, especially; on the importance of forensic analysis methodology in combating crime in the financial market. The main thesis of these speeches was the relevance of the provisions characterizing the scientist's contribution to the development of scientific knowledge for modern criminalistiks and forensic examination and the use of this knowledge in law enforcement activities, as well as his high moral qualities.

This article presents the recollections of a grateful student regarding his teacher — Ruslan Fedorovich Vasiliev, Doctor of Law and Professor at the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law of the Moscow University Law Faculty. The author talks about his teaching style and scientific supervision, recalls his contribution to the scientific support of law-making activities, and turns to the most interesting topics of a number of scientific studies by R. F. Vasiliev.

The importance of P. Atiyah's views for the development of the will theory of contract cannot be overstated. His studies on contract law stand out among other doctrinal sources of common law, which were strongly influenced, on the contrary, by the bargain theory. Their analysis shows that the influence of civil law on the understanding of the contract, which became most powerful in the 19th century, still exists to this day. However, a number of critical remarks and challenges regarding the will theory force the author to seek answers to the expressed doubts. Their analysis helps to conclude whether the will theory is able to retain its significance and adequately respond to the demands of contract law.

The article deals with the issues of limiting property rights in the western provinces of Russia. The study touches upon the problems of peasant land ownership and the policy of Russification of these territories. Extensive normative and legal material, judicial practice and archival documents are involved. The Polish uprisings in 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 radically change the state activity in the region. There is a consistent restriction of the rights of the Polish gentry, and the Russification of the region begins. The decree of 10 December 1865 introduces the concept of a "person of Polish nationality" and limits the right of the gentry to own land. Polish peasants did not fall under the Decree, and their right to purchase plots of land was not limited. The process of forming a new layer of large Polish landowners from former peasants begins, which raises serious concerns in government circles, since this does not correspond to the ongoing policy of Russification of the region. At the end of the 19th century the practice of applying the Decree of 1865 identified a number of problems, including those concerning the circle of persons to whom this normative legal act was to be applied. When determining the authority of a subject, religious affiliation is put at the forefront. At the same time, the issue of replacing the concept of "person of Polish nationality" with "person of foreign religions" is raised. The article shows the difference in views in the government regarding the legal regulation of the lands of non-noble Poles. A conclusion is made about the sufficiently balanced approach of the legislators in developing the laws and in-depth study of the problems identified in practice.

The article is devoted to the Faculty of Soviet Law, which existed at the 1st Moscow State University from June 1925 to April 1931. Within the framework of this faculty, there was a significant revival of the legal training system that operated at the Imperial Moscow University before the 1917 revolution. The article reveals the background and causes for the new reform of legal education in Soviet Russia, which resulted in the establishment of the Faculty of Soviet Law at Moscow University instead of the law department of the Faculty of Social Sciences; it describes the internal organization of the faculty, analyzes its educational program and the methods of teaching law used here. Special attention is paid to the students, the teaching staff and the heads of the faculty. The article consists of three sections: 1. Introduction, 2. Establishment of the Faculty of Soviet Law of the 1st Moscow State University: its structure, curriculum and methods of teaching law. 3. Students, teachers, and deans of the Faculty of Soviet Law.

Among the variety of forms of criminal activity with the use of firearms and (or) explosive devices in recent years, cases of armed attacks on educational institutions, which take the form of mass murders, have taken a special place. Given the comparative novelty of this phenomenon of russian reality, there is an urgent need to develop adequate tactical and methodological approaches to their investigation and prevention. This article is the first attempt in the Russian criminalistics science to make a systematic analysis of the structural elements of the criminalistic characteristics of mass murders in educational organisations. Typical information about the crime scene conditions, the method of committing the offence, the trace picture, as well as the characteristics of the personality of the offender are considered. The article substantiates the position that it is inexpedient to single out as a separate element of criminalistic characteristic the information about the personality of victims — their choice is non-personalised, the determining factor is physical reach. These offences are often replicas of previously known acts of violence. This directly reflects on their criminalistic uniqueness and emphasises their supranational character, as well as indicating the potential specificity of their manifestation in the Russian context.

The article analyzes the problems of expert assessment of the emotional state of persons who have committed offenses, including multiple murders, in order to establish the presence or absence of affect in them. The criteria of the forensic psychological examination of legally significant affect, the features of its diagnosis and methodological approaches to the definition are considered. The subspecies of affect and the specifics of their qualifications are considered. There is a discrepancy between the psychological concept of affect and the legal concept of a sudden strong emotional disturbance; unjustified exaggeration by the legislator of the importance of circumstances provoking affect, when qualifying affective actions under privileged articles of the Criminal Code (107, 113), while not paying due attention to the analysis of the characteristics of the behavior of the accused at the time of the crime, before and after aggressive actions, and also not taking into account the subjective factor in the perception of the conflict situation, the personality of the accused, the presence of "pathological soil" and others. At the same time, in persons with mental abnormalities (within the framework of sanity), one can observe a weighted picture of affect with signs of deep affective narrowing of consciousness, when at the height of an affective explosion, affective aggression radiates to others, who often happen to be accidentally involved in a traumatic situation or have a distant relationship to it (the so-called widespread or radiating affect-torts)

March 13, 2025 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Valentin Yakovlevich Koldin, Doctor of Law, Professor, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Honored Professor of Moscow State University, veteran of the Great Patriotic War, methodologist, outstanding criminologist, whose developments had the most significant impact on the development of domestic criminology and the birth of forensic expertise. This date has become a serious reason for rethinking the scientific and methodological legacy of the scientist. It has been established that the role often attributed to Valentin Yakovlevich in the formation and development of forensic identification reveals only a small part of his significant contribution to science.

The work carried out shows that the evolution of his methodology and system of views is concentrated in three fundamental results: the consolidation of universality for criminalistic identification not only in criminal proceedings, but also in all other types of legal process, as well as in law enforcement in general; the formation and development of the idea of forensic technologies in law enforcement, which united several generations. criminologists; substantiation and presentation of an expert-criminalistic picture of the world of law enforcement. Taken together, these provisions rightly claim to be paradigmatic in nature and may (already are) influencing the revision of the place of criminology in the system of scientific knowledge.

The modern criminalistic recognition of corruption crimes was resulted after long evolution of scientific views, developed by both Russian and foreign scientists. Initially, such kind of crimes was a matter only for criminal law studies. However, their criminalistic awareness started already in the first quarter of the 20th century. The increasing role of the state in social life after the First World War make it inevitable due to increasing risk of any disruption in functioning of the administrative apparatus. The concept of "white-collar crime" was put forward in the United States, as a kind of criminality which was significantly different from the crime of the "lower classes" ("blue collar"), since such criminals are formed in completely different social conditions and have different skills than ordinary offenders. Basing on it, the doctrine of "corporate criminality" was developed. Soviet scientists followed a similar path, which was shaped not only under the doctrine of the class nature of crime but for increasing demands to solve practical problems. Initially, they considered "economic and official crimes" as a unified group, since it was the state that became the main business entity. Subsequently, the managerial component was selected out, and that ideas became foundations of a modern understanding of corruption crimes

The article analyzes the contribution of scientists from the Department of Criminalistics of the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University to the creation and development of the information and cognitive concept of criminology. The emergence of this concept was due to both the need for criminology to create common theoretical and methodological provisions that would allow them to be used to analyses the available empirical material, and the need to distinguish the fields of research between criminology and criminal procedure. At the same time, the use of an information-cognitive approach to the analysis of the subject and object of criminology would be impossible without the creative use of methods and tools of computer science and cybernetics by scientists of the department. The author examines the evolution of the views of the authors of this concept, analyzes its conceptual framework. There are positive aspects of this concept as identification of common patterns in various types of forensic activities based on the analysis of information processes taking place in them; understanding of criminal and criminalistics activities as complex information systems; creation of unified theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of criminalistically significant information about criminal activities; development of information proving technologies. The conclusion of the article is the possibility of using a number of ideas of the information and cognitive concept of criminology in modern conditions.

The article examines the emergence and formation of the first private forensic theory, the theory of forensic identification. It is indicated that the term "identification" was introduced into criminalistic usage by the famous French criminologist A. Bertillon. The article highlights the special role of S.M. Potapov, a graduate of Moscow Imperial University (1896), in the formation of this theory, who laid its scientific foundations as a private forensic theory, defined the forms of identification, classified identification objects, and outlined the basics of identification research methodology. The article considers a significant contribution to certain provisions of the theory of criminalistic identification by B.I. Shevchenko and V.Ya. Koldin, who were engaged in scientific and pedagogical activities at the Department of Criminology at Moscow State University. B.I. Shevchenko is the author of the classification of traces in tracology based on the mechanism of trace formation, which we are currently using. V.Ya. Koldin improved the scientific apparatus of identification theory, developed a methodology He created an algorithm and structure for the interaction of subjects of search and identification activities in proving

The article at an interdisciplinary level deals with the issues of monozygotic twins individualization using forensic DNA identification methods. The problematic area is that STR analysis, which is the basis of expert methods and the creation of genetic databases, produces identical DNA profiles with samples of monozygotic twins. From the perspective of an integrating specialist the legal, statistical and molecular-genetic aspects of the problem are discussed. The consequences of this limitation for the investigation of crimes and legal proceedings in criminal and civil proceedings are demonstrated using examples from practice. It is shown that, given comparable factual circumstances, the court decisions may differ significantly. Data on the frequency of natural birth of monozygotic twins are presented, and a noticeable increase in the frequency of births of monozygotic twins is noted in connection with the use of medical reproductive technologies. It has been substantiated that, despite the initial genetic identity, the accumulation of spontaneous mutations, variability of epigenetic markers, as well as other factors lead to the emergence of differences in monozygotic twins detected by modern technologies. The types of such differences, their molecular mechanisms and prospects for application in criminalistics and forensic medicine for establishing identity and family links are considered. The problems and prospects for further development of identification of monozygotic twins issues are discussed.

This article is devoted to one of the urgent tasks of theoretical development of modern forensic science, which has a clearly expressed applied significance — ensuring judicial investigation in civil proceedings. Based on the interdisciplinary status of forensic science as a science that develops not only a special methodology for the investigation and prevention of crimes, judicial investigation, but also forensic support for judicial activity in other types of legal proceedings, we are faced with the need to create private teachings and theories in its development. At the same time, forensic support is needed for the means (sources) of evidence that are admitted as such by the legislator in civil and arbitration proceedings. From the understanding of proof as a cognitive and practical activity consisting of obtaining (collecting, securing), examining and evaluating evidence, it follows that the use of forensic capabilities should relate to those admissible in the process: written evidence, material evidence, explanations of the parties and other participants in the process, testimony of witnesses, audio and video recordings, expert opinions and testimony, consultations and testimony of specialists. It should also cover general methodological principles taking into account the stage-by-stage nature of legal proceedings, the distribution of the burden of proof, its adversarial nature and other features of civil and arbitration processes.

The article proves the expediency and urgent need to use the tools, techniques and methods developed in the science of criminology in other areas of legal and other law enforcement activities other than criminal procedure. There is a tendency to expand the fields of application of forensic knowledge, as well as to increase the objects of attention of modern criminology without changing traditional ideas about the objects and subject of this science. The possibilities of criminalistics in solving problems arising in specific situations (conditions) of using criminalistic knowledge in ensuring civil (civil, arbitration) proceedings, administrative proceedings and customs proceedings are shown. At the same time, it is shown that forensic (expert) methods and technologies of identification (fingerprinting, habitoscopy, DNA identification, etc.), as well as technologies for detecting counterfeiting of banknotes and securities remain unchanged in the listed forms of procedural activity. Without any modifications, they can be used in criminal, civil, administrative proceedings; operational search, customs, banking or management activities, as well as in the field of forensic support and business protection (entrepreneurial activity). Attention is drawn to the fact that in order to master all the competencies listed in the educational standards of higher legal education, teaching forensic (professional) thinking at all levels of legal training should become a core task of criminology, which will be solved based on the use of methods of logic, psychology and other sciences, using game theory, reflexive management, factual analysis, information modeling, etc.

The article analyses the formation, current state and future development of the fourth and final part of criminalistics, namely the methodology of criminal investigation. The relevance of the research is determined by changes in the structure of crime, the reform of law enforcement agencies, the increasing complexity of legal regulation and the growing impact of high technologies. The purpose of the study is to identify directions for improving the general and special parts of the criminal investigation methodology. Based on a historical and legal analysis, the article clarifies the content and correlation of the notions of "methods" and "methodology" of investigation and substantiates the recognition of the investigation methodology as an independent section of criminalistics. It demonstrates the need to include in the general part of the methodology issues of organizing the investigation of complex multi-episode and transnational crimes, as well as the further development of the theory of the criminalistic characterization of crimes and the criminalistic theory of the attribute. Special attention is paid to the role of crime attributes and to the prospects for using big data and artificial intelligence technologies to develop digital and predictive criminalistic characterizations, including for offences with limited empirical practice. The article also substantiates the inclusion of trial tactics and crime prevention in the investigation methodology and proposes the following sequence of stages of criminalistic activity: detection, disclosure, investigation, judicial examination, prevention of crimes

The article presents a theoretical and methodological model for establishing cause-and-effect relationships in the system of elements of the crime mechanism. The content of forensic causal analysis as an integral method of investigation is disclosed, encompassing the dialectical method of cognition and special forensic methods — the method of causal sequence, the hypothesis-based method, spatial-temporal analysis, as well as forensic modelling and experiment. The distinction between the concepts of "cause" and "condition" as applied to crime investigation is substantiated. Particular attention is paid to the reconstruction of causal chains on the basis of material traces, the analysis of the offender's actions in the unity of their internal and external aspects, and the methods for addressing situations of causal multiplicity. The significance of establishing cause-and-effect relationships for proving a person's involvement in the commission of a crime and restoring an objective picture of the event is demonstrated. The practical and theoretical importance of the proposed approach is substantiated, as well as the prospects for its development through the integration of modern technologies, including artificial intelligence.

In forensic publications there are still controversial and not fully resolved issues related to the understanding of important essential problems of criminalistics, tactics, its essence, content and further development. The understanding of criminalistic tactics only as a system of recommendations on the most appropriate, rational methods of investigative actions and the process of investigation is controversial. Such an opinion does not correspond to the essence of criminalistics as a science based on the research of regularities of criminal activity. Tactical provisions have been developed, should be used and are actually used in practice, which are obligatory to follow them in the process of investigation. The rules include: the need at the very initial stage of the investigation to find out the alibi of the suspect/accused, to ensure a parallel verification of all versions, to inspect the scene of accident in cases of murder, rape, other violent crimes, theft necessarily in the absence of the suspect, accused even in cases of his confession. At the present stage, the traditional understanding of the leading question has changed. The concept of "conditionally leading question" is proposed — it is such a question, which together with the accompanying information may at first seem and be perceived as a leading question. To determine its essence, it is necessary to ask other related questions, analyze the available factual information, take into account the evidence that may be obtained later. The article sets forth other provisions. The following pattern is formulated: "sexual rapists, sexual maniacs, serial killers often have an irresistible urge to commit a subsequent or several subsequent crimes in the same place or near the place where one of the last or previous crimes was committed"

An analysis of recent scientific research indicates that authors have recently begun to neglect the language of forensic science, which has evolved over its existence as a field and a science. This trend negatively and significantly impacts the clarity of the presentation of forensic data obtained during research and undermines such an important element of the general theory of forensic science as its language, which, among other elements, is known to shape forensic science as a science. This tendency is particularly evident in the processes of formulating "new" definitions of forensic concepts and "refining" existing ones. Authors of these works neglect, or most likely are unaware of, the recommendations of classical theoretical sources addressing the methodology of conceptual development in science, which is detrimental to forensic science as a science. This important problem is outlined in this article

The article is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of a prominent Soviet and Russian legal scholar, Doctor of Law, Professor of the Department of Theory of State and Law and Political Science of the Law Faculty, Honored Professor of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov Oleg Ernestovich Leist (1925–2003). The article shows the main stages of his scientific biography. It is noted that the work of O.E. Leist organically combines the doctrinal developments of lawyers of the pre-revolutionary school with the best that was expressed by legal scholars during the Soviet era. O.E. Leist developed a comprehensive study of law and the state. According to his estimates, on a societal scale, legal thinking cannot be formed by orders from above; it arises along with mass everyday interest in understanding social relations through specific rights and obligations of their participants, the grounds for the emergence of these rights and obligations, in connection with procedural guarantees of legal relations and responsibility for violations of rights and failure to fulfill obligations. O.E. Leist made a significant contribution to fundamental jurisprudence by developing the topic of sanctions and legal liability. His attention was focused on the analysis of the place of sanctions in the structure of a legal norm, the connection of substantive law and process with legal guarantees of members of society. The general conclusion is made that, in many ways, thanks to the works and activities of Professor Leist, the continuity of theoretical and legal science is currently ensured in Russia.

This article presents a comparative legal study of justice issues in the context of economic sanctions and global challenges to the modern legal order, analyzing the commonalities and specificities of the legislative and law enforcement practices of Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan in addressing these issues. It explores some of the specific features of the judicial systems of these countries, as well as the main areas of judicial activity within the framework of economic constitutionalism and its fundamental principles related to the relationship between business and government and the protection of the rights of business entities. In analyzing the role of the judiciary in the market system, special attention is paid to the activities of the constitutional justice bodies of the two countries, their decisions both to protect and develop national economies, and to creating conditions for sustainable economic growth in the context of ensuring state sovereignty and investment attractiveness. In this regard, a comparative legal study of ensuring the uniformity of judicial practice in resolving economic disputes and, on this basis, the development of precedent-based principles in the legal systems of Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan is of great importance.

The article draws attention to the impact of changes in the size of the territory of the state and the social structure of society on the organization of state unity. It is proved that changes in the organization of the fight against local robberies occurred gradually and not simultaneously throughout the state. The restriction of the privileges of large patrimonial officials (serving princes) in the field of the court went hand in hand with the creation of local institutions for the implementation of the court for serious crimes, and the powers of this court were transferred from the breadwinners/kormlenshchiks appointed by the Grand Duke (later tsar) elected by the population. Along the way, attention is drawn to the high level of literacy of the local population of cities and municipalities, the elected ones of which conducted record-keeping on crimes, and then, from the middle of the XVI century, on fiscal matters. Attention is drawn to the fact that the combination of the central and local apparatus since the beginning of the XVII century was based not only on the sad experience of the Time of Troubles/Smutnoe vremya, but also took into account the need to change the management of places due to the sharply increased territory of the state, which objectively required increased centralization. It is emphasized that by the beginning of the XVII century a central bureaucratic management apparatus has already been formed, and during the Oprichnina and the Time of Troubles, changes took place in the nature of land ownership.

One of the legitimate exceptions to WTO rules, which allow its members to deviate from fulfilling their WTO obligations, are security exceptions. To date, there are no unified theoretical and practical approaches to the interpretation and application of security exceptions. However, it is precisely the lack of legal certainty regarding this group of exceptions that leads to abuse by some WTO members, who broadly interpret the legal categories of "essential security interests" and "the existence of extraordinary circumstances in international relations." The approaches of the WTO LFS arbitration panel in trade disputes, in which security exceptions were considered, could be used to form a relatively uniform practice of interpreting and applying security exceptions. However, in subsequent trade disputes, the conclusions of the WTO LFS arbitration panel demonstrated the existence of legal uncertainty regarding the interpretation and application of security exceptions. Such a situation does not allow WTO members, including the Russian Federation, to predict WTO LFS decisions regarding the prospects of challenging unilateral restrictive measures imposed for reasons of national security. In this regard, the filing of a complaint by the Russian Federation to the WTO LFS will become possible after the formation of a relatively uniform practice of interpretation and application of exceptions for security reasons.

There remains a doctrinal debate about the current position of the Papacy in international law. The key issue on which scholars have not reached consensus is whether the names 'the Roman See' ('the Apostolic See', 'the Holy See') and 'the Vatican City State' ('the Vatican City') denote two distinct subjects of international law under the ruling of Supreme Pontiff, or whether they are synonymous with the same separate political entity (or denote the relationship of part and whole with respect to such the entity). As the practice of the participation of the Roman See and the Vatican City in bilateral and multilateral international treaties demonstrates, each of these entities is recognised as a separate party to the agreement, it concludes. The Apostolic See and Vatican City are separate units with international obligations and responsibilities. Both entities may sometimes be parties to the same trilateral and multilateral agreements. Since Vatican City does not have a foreign policy department for 'organisational economy reasons', in most cases, international treaties are signed 'in its name and on its behalf' by representatives of the Secretariat of State of the Roman See. Thus, the 'dualistic' concept of the international legal personality of the Apostolic See and the Vatican City State most accurately defines the state of affairs in inter-State practice.

Within the framework of the common economic space of the EAEU, the elimination of violations of competition rules is carried out by five national antimonopoly authorities, as well as the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). The criteria and rules for determining the competence of each of these bodies, established in the Treaty on the EAEU and in national legislation, do not allow for unambiguous, prompt and unmistakable identification of the competent antimonopoly authority before the start of the investigation. The author analyzes the shortcomings of the concept of cross-border markets, as well as special conditions differentiated by types of violations that are used to establish the competence of the EEC to conduct an investigation, and also substantiates the fundamental impracticability of the procedure for justifying its own competence by the national antimonopoly authority, since it initially requires a reliable exclusion of the fact that the case of anticompetitive behavior under consideration is within the competence of the EEC. Based on the generalization of the shortcomings of the existing system for determining the competent authority, with the involvement of the practice of the European Union, the article provides recommendations for improving the criteria and procedure for determining the competence of the EEC and national antimonopoly authorities: the need for criteria for determining the competent authority based on the signs of a possible violation, as well as from publicly available information about the potential violator and the relevant market is substantiated. In addition, instead of the existing one, a procedure for the joint establishment of competent authority is proposed, which will make it possible to avoid disputes about the competence and jurisdiction of cases. Within the framework of the common economic space of the EAEU, the elimination of violations of competition rules is carried out by five national antimonopoly authorities, as well as the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). The criteria and rules for determining the competence of each of these bodies, established in the Treaty on the EAEU and in national legislation, do not allow for unambiguous, prompt and unmistakable identification of the competent antimonopoly authority before the start of the investigation. The author analyzes the shortcomings of the concept of cross-border markets, as well as special conditions differentiated by types of violations that are used to establish the competence of the EEC to conduct an investigation, and also substantiates the fundamental impracticability of the procedure for justifying its own competence by the national antimonopoly authority, since it initially requires a reliable exclusion of the fact that the case of anticompetitive behavior under consideration is within the competence of the EEC. Based on the generalization of the shortcomings of the existing system for determining the competent authority, with the involvement of the practice of the European Union, the article provides recommendations for improving the criteria and procedure for determining the competence of the EEC and national antimonopoly authorities: the need for criteria for determining the competent authority based on the signs of a possible violation, as well as from publicly available information about the potential violator and the relevant market is substantiated. In addition, instead of the existing one, a procedure for the joint establishment of competent authority is proposed, which will make it possible to avoid disputes about the competence and jurisdiction of cases.

Despite the abundance of publications devoted to the EAEU legal order, the issues related to potential for confliction between the EAEU law and other branches of international law, in particular international investment law, remain insufficiently researched in the literature. The article highlights the risks of competing interpretations of the EAEU law carried out by both the EAEU Court and arbitral tribunals that settle disputes between investors from one EAEU member State and other members of the Union on the basis of EAEU law. This problem has shifted from a theoretical to a practical plane due to the appearance of the first investment arbitration awards interpreting the rules of the EAEU Treaty. This suggests that in the foreseeable future, the EAEU Court may find itself in a situation similar to the conflict between the CJEU and investment arbitration, which recently ended with the complete elimination of the possibility for arbitration of the so-called "intra-EU" disputes in the European Union legal order.

This article examines the regulation of trade in services in the EAEU, as well as the phased formation of a single services market within the framework of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union. The key stages, goals, and principles of creating a single services market are analyzed, including the conditions for the supply and receipt of services between the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union. Particular attention is paid to the harmonization of legislation in transport, financial policy, and energy. Since the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, significant progress has been achieved in creating a single services market and common markets in strategic sectors. Such regulation will accelerate the development of value chains. Particular attention must be paid to current trends in the development of trade in services, such as digitalization.

The article is devoted to identifying and assessing the main results of the last year work of the new composition of the EAEU Court, which took office on January 1, 2024, comparing with the results of the Court's activities over the past decade, as well as with the results of the work of the first composition of the Court in the first year of its functioning. The author analyzed statistical data on the activities of the Court as of December 31, 2024 (received applications, applications accepted for proceedings, cases considered, judicial acts adopted (including their different types), the range of issues that became the subject of consideration, etc.) and concluded that the new judges have a significant workload already in the first year of their work. The focus is on the legal positions of the Court, formulated in its decisions (on dispute resolution cases) and advisory opinions (on clarification cases) on the issues of general principles and rules of competition, the functioning of the customs union in the EAEU, sanitary, veterinary-sanitary and quarantine phytosanitary measures, as well as labor relations in the Union bodies. The fact that the representatives of the new composition of the Court still lack uniformity in understanding and applying the EAEU law is established, as well as problematic aspects related to the formulation of dissenting opinions by judges when adopting judicial acts are identified.

Since the creation of the UN and the establishment of the provisions on the dignity and value of the human personality in its Charter, the individual has been in the field of view of international law, but, according to the classical approach, he is not its subject primarily due to his lack of the right to participate in the creation of the norms of international law. Meanwhile, the doctrinal perception of the status of the person in the interstate system has evolved significantly in recent times, and the gradual recognition of the role he or she plays in international law is becoming evident. The issue of international legal personality of private persons, which should include not only individuals (natural persons), but also legal entities and any non-state formations (associations, trade unions, non-profit organizations) requires special attention, especially in the context of developing integration legal orders, in which private persons are not only "objects" of legal relationships, but also rightful subjects. This conclusion can be drawn because in the law and order of integration associations there are not only vertical relations between private persons and the state, but also horizontal relations between private persons, also regulated by the law of the integration association. In this regard, the recognition of the legal personality of private persons in the legal orders of integration associations can be justified through the introduction of the term "local legal personality" of private persons in international law, which can be viewed from different angles — as a progressive development of the international legal order with an emphasis on the increasing inclusion of humanitarian values and principles and the primacy of international law (in this case, the law of the integration association) over domestic law, as well as at a simpler level in the form of direct regulation of the rights and obligations of individuals by international law and access to justice for those individuals.

The concept of the metaverse, as a strategic vision for the development prospects of cyberspace, reflects the ambitious claims of virtual communities to establish a global digital rule based order. Global Digital Compact of 2024 demonstrates the UN's commitment to overcoming digital inequality and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by involving multiple stakeholders in Internet governance. Non-governmental organizations and virtual communities are actively implementing emergent digital solutions and putting a wide range of human rights issues on the agenda of the world community. States, in turn, seek to protect their digital sovereignty, ensure legislative recognition and judicial protection of the digital rights of citizens. Constructive human rights discourse in cyberspace is developing thanks to the interaction of states and non-governmental organizations towards the universal recognition of digital rights. Calls by virtual communities for complete freedom of the Network from state institutions have gradually given way to declarations of the need for freedom from cybercrime and freedom to exercise intellectual and digital rights. Digital freedom, as a legal condition, requires the implementation of legal guarantees of fair competition in virtual markets, which at the level of transnational law is expressed in the recognition of special principles of cyber interaction. The UN assumes that many stakeholders in the digital environment strategically manage artificial intelligence there, but from the standpoint of transnational law, the formats of interaction between states and non-governmental organizations lead to the opposite: an increase in the influence of transnational corporations and the implementation of the extraterritorial jurisdiction of developed states in cyberspace.

This article demonstrates the practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the example of some cases considered by it, which is related to the implementation of the law of the Eurasian Economic Union. In particular, this concerns cases of administrative offenses, as well as economic disputes. The article provides interpretive explanations from resolutions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, containing explanations on issues of implementing the law of the said Union in the sphere of domestic relations. Attention is drawn to the measures taken by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to bring the practice of the Court of the Union to the attention of judges and court staff. The practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is not presented in the article exhaustively.

This article examines the fundamentals of legal regulation of air transport within the framework of Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as well as problems of legal regulation of flight safety and air traffic management within EAEU. It is noted that taking into account long experience of economic integration in other regions of the world at certain stage of such integration the States are confronted with issues of coordination of their policies in the field of transport, including air transport, and the establishment of its legal regime at the regional level, since successful implementation of single regional market of goods, services, capital and labor is hardly possible without development of transport networks and relevant infrastructure. Despite the fact that EAEU law sets good basis for liberalization of air transport and creation of common market of air transport services within EAEU, successful achievement of these goals depends upon resolving, as soon as possible, the following problems: (a) defining the legal form for liberalization of legal regulation of air services within EAEU; (b) setting the stages of liberalization of legal regulation of air services within EAEU, including stages of expansion of market access and elimination of other restrictions for commercial activities of airlines; (c) resolving the issues of possible change of ownership and control conditions in respect of EAEU air carriers for the purpose of application of "common interest" concept allowing market access for air carries "substantially owned and effectively controlled" by any EAEU Member State, its citizens or legal entities; (d) defining the extent, to which the legal regulation of flight safety and air traffic management are legally regulated within EAEU, as well as the forms of cooperation between EAEU and Interstate Aviation Committee.

The execution by EAEU private and public entities of extraterritorial unilateral restrictive measures taken by third countries against other countries of the Union very often gives rise to a conflict between the execution of foreign sanctions and the obligations arising from membership in the integration organisation. In this situation, a scientific and practical problem arises related to determining to what extent the actions of member states and private entities to restrict trade in goods and services with economic entities of other EAEU member states are compatible with the law of the EAEU, if such restrictions are result of introduction the unilateral extraterritorial sanctions by third countries. This problem became the subject of legal proceedings by the EAEU court within the framework of the advisory procedure. The court came to the conclusion that it is inadmissible to worsen the conditions of trade in services, including air transport services, compared to the regime in force on the date of entry into force of the Treaty on the EAEU. However, the judicial act does not contain any conclusions regarding the legality of the introduction of flight restrictions imposed by one member state against an airline from another member state. The author believes that in most cases, restrictions on trade in goods and services caused by the implementation of foreign sanctions are incompatible with Union law, both when they are introduced by Member States and by private entities. Since in the first case, the principles of the internal market are violated, and in the second case there is violation of general rules of competition.

Taking into account and on the basis of a doctrinal analysis of the provisions of the Russian Constitution, the article examines the problem of the correlation or supremacy of legal norms, international or domestic, in the Russian legal system. It is proved that the Constitution has primacy over all sources of law in Russia. Only the ratified international treaties of the Russian Federation have supremacy over the norms of federal legislation (i. e. they have the quality of "supra-legality", but not "supra-constitutionality"). At the same time, the generally recognized principles and norms of international law, which have the force of international custom for Russia, do not have this quality of "supra-legality", since the status of such international customs is ignored in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Due to the formal and logical interpretation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the norms of Russian laws prevail over international customs. The hierarchy of general principles of law in the Russian legal system is determined by their origin: they are either contained in conventional or customary norms of international law, or are fixed in the legal system of Russia in the form of legal or subordinate acts. Decisions of international organizations that are binding on Russia by virtue of ratified international treaties of the Russian Federation have "supervisory" force in the Russian Federation to the extent that they do not contradict the foundations of the constitutional system of Russia.

The issues of retroactivity of legal norms are among the most controversial issues in both international and national law. As the current practice of States shows, they are increasingly concluding international treaties and adopting domestic regulations with retroactive application, thus exercising their sovereign right to respond adequately and quickly to changing social relations and regulate their economies. The decisions of the highest (constitutional) national courts, as well as international courts and tribunals, play a significant role in shaping doctrinal and practical approaches to solving this problem. The practice of international courts such as the ECHR and the Court of Justice of the European Union, investment arbitrations and national constitutional courts of a number of countries, including the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, shows a lack of consensus on the issue of retroactivity beyond the criminal law. This indicates the absence of such a universally recognized principle of law as a general prohibition of retroactivity, if such retroactivity leads to infringement of the rights of individuals, as well as a universally recognized customary rule of international law with the same content.

The heads of state and government of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union set new strategic goals for the creation of a common scientific and educational space of the EAEU to ensure the competitiveness of national economies in the international race for innovation leadership. Achieving these goals is impossible without creating an effective legal framework that removes barriers to joint innovation projects, stimulates and ensures technological progress. Based on this, the article attempts to identify gaps in the legal regulation of the scientific and technological development of the EAEU and its member states, to formulate and substantiate specific proposals that could make the Eurasian integration processes in the field of creation, implementation, commercialization and scaling of new technologies more effective. According to the authors, in the conditions of the EAEU, clear and coordinated regulation of industrial policy is the key to realizing the innovative potential of the Union, especially in terms of scientific and technological cooperation. It will eliminate the legal barriers that hinder joint innovative projects. With its help, it will be possible to carry out the long-overdue unification of terminology in the field of science and education on the basis of national legislation, as well as a revision of the interpretation of the principles of industrial policy, including the principle of nondiscrimination, in order to prioritize support for integration projects. Improving the legal regulation of various forms of public-private partnership will turn it into a highly profitable tool for technological cooperation. The critical consideration of the European Union’s experience in this area, conducted in the study, suggests, in particular, how to systematically review the legal status of Eurasian technology platforms in order to increase their efficiency. In general, the study helps clarify the importance of a supranational approach to creating favorable conditions for improving the competitiveness of member states’ economies in the global innovation environment, and the key regulatory imperatives characteristic of it.

In this article, the authors study current issues of international cooperation between the EAEU member states and the BRICS countries. The issues of interstate interaction and prospects for the development of integration processes between the EAEU and the BRICS countries are considered. The enormous economic potential of the EAEU and the strengthening of its role in the post-Soviet space are noted. The authors also analyze the aforementioned interstate associations and note the prospects for strengthening integration interaction between the aforementioned associations in the context of geopolitical tensions and unilateral unfriendly measures imposed by Western countries against the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The special role of the Russian Federation in deepening integration interaction between the EAEU and the BRICS countries is pointed out. The authors note certain problems that hinder the deepening of integration processes in the EAEU. The importance of single energy resource markets within the EAEU is pointed out, and the legal regulation of the three energy markets and their key contradictions are considered. The legal framework of the union states the creation of all three single markets in the short term, but there are key contradictions for each of them. The importance of creating single financial development institutions for these associations and the prospects for interstate cooperation within these associations are noted.

The problem of the implementation of generally recognized principles of the administration of justice in the procedural law of the Eurasian Economic Union is one of the most controversial both in the science of international law and in the activities of the EAEU Court. The Court’s practice has formed certain procedural and legal approaches, in which special attention is paid to universal principles of the administration of justice, in particular, such as legal certainty, the principle of legitimate expectations, and the right to judicial protection. These procedural principles formed the basis of the Court’s activities, including the acceptance of applications submitted to the Court. Currently, the legal criteria for the admissibility of applications have been developed. Conventionally, such criteria can be divided into two groups, conceptually differing in legal significance: for «litigation» and for «clarification of law». For the first group, the Court makes a decision, and for the second, it provides an advisory opinion. It is important to note that the interpretative function of the Court, manifested in the provision of an advisory opinion, has proved to be very effective and in demand, as evidenced not only by the statistics of applications to the Court for clarification of the law, but also by the growing role of advisory opinions in the law enforcement practice of the EAEU bodies. The established practice of the Court sufficiently implements the procedural principles of the administration of justice. At the same time, it is noted the importance of continuing the development of law enforcement practice for the implementation and observance of procedural principles in the legal system of the EAEU.

A thorough understanding of legal phenomena is impossible without understanding how they are created (constructed). This is especially important for such a fundamental element of law as legal norms. It is well known that the legal norm is the most important element of the mechanism of legal regulation, serves as the foundation for lawmaking and therefore indirectly performs the most important functions associated with the implementation of law in society. An analysis of legal doctrine shows that today scholars do not draw a clear line between the categories of “legal norm” and “legal norm” and use them as synonyms. A legal norm is the basis for legal relations and other legal phenomena, through which legal regulation is ensured in various social spheres. At the same time, the question arises as to what constitutes the construction of a legal norm as a legal phenomenon. The study of this question is the purpose of this study.

The article examines the process of legalization of separation of spouses without divorce among peasants in the last decades of the Russian Empire. Involving archival materials previously unexplored in science, the author demonstrates three contradictory lines of legal regulation of the separation of spouses: the legislative prohibition (with a small number of exceptions prescribed in the law) on the separation of husbands and wives; permission to issue separate residence permits to wives in the order of the monarch’s favour in the practice of the III Division of Her Majesty’s Own Chancellery, the Department of State Police, the Commission (Chancellery) of the Russian Empire. I. H. Chancellery, the State Police Department, the Commission (Chancellery) of Petitions to the Emperor; decrees of the Governing Senate, which in some cases allowed local authorities to issue separate residence permits to peasant women without the consent of their husbands. It is concluded that the formation of the institution of separate residence of spouses in the Russian Empire did not take place at once for all estates, but gradually. Specific legislation on peasants, which directly allowed the issuance of separate residence permits to members of the peasant yard without the consent of the householder, was the reason why the peasant class was the first to obtain the right to seek separation of spouses.

The article examines the problems of adoption of the Constitution of the Japanese Empire (late 19th century). It analyzes the grounds for choosing the Prussian Constitution of 1850 as a model for the Basic Law of Japan of the Meiji era and mentions the reasons why the constitutions of some other countries were rejected. It describes the circumstances that forced Japanese politicians to begin work on drafting the country’s fundamental law, the first drafts of the Constitution, the contribution of Ito Hirobumi, as an outstanding Japanese political figure, to the development and adoption of the Basic Law of Japan, and the influence of Japanese traditions and customs on determining the status of the Head of State. It shows the main points of the translated from Japanese Natsushima bill prepared by Ito, which served as a basis for the working group drafting the Constitution, and comments on it by the German lawyer Hermann Rosler, to whom Japanese politicians and lawyers often turned for advice in the field of constitutional law. It narrates in details what happened on February 11, 1889. This was the day of holding a ceremony of the adoption of the Constitution, which consisted of religious and secular parts. This day remained firmly in memory of the inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago. The opinions of Japanese scholars are represented regarding the first Japanese Constitution in the European interpretation of this term, based on the Japanese sources. An inference is made about the conservative nature of this law, which was unable to prevent the militarists from coming to power and unleashing wars in the middle and in the late first half of the twentieth century.

The problem of legal regulation of contracts not provided for by the current positive civil legislation has long been the object of scientific research of many generations of scientists. Providing the participants of civil relations with the freedom necessary for them to carry out their activities should be recognized as an essential condition for the effective development of the economy of states based on the principles of a free market. The legal recognition of various atypical private law constructions is precisely one of the manifestations of such freedom. As the main such atypical constructions, most often encountered in practical activity, it is customary to single out unnamed and mixed contracts, which are understood as agreements of counterparties, in respect of which the current civil legislation does not provide for any positive regulation. In this regard, the main objectives of this article are to describe the historical development of the Russian normative regulation of mixed and unnamed contracts; to identify a clear distinction between these atypical agreements among themselves, as well as with the named contractual constructions enshrined in the current civil legislation; to analyse the main doctrinal positions regarding the essence and specificity of mixed and unnamed contracts, including foreign researchers; to find the optimal mechanism for the application of rules for the following types of agreements.

This article investigates the origins and identifies the prerequisites for the emergence of the institution of the firm. Then the process of formation of the doctrine of the firm in Europe in the periods of the Middle Ages and the New Age is analyzed. The sources used were domestic and foreign (mainly German) literature of the corresponding periods. When writing the work, author used historical-legal, comparative-legal and logical methods. With the help of these methods, it was revealed that the prerequisites for the emergence of the institution of the firm appeared in medieval Europe, also the relationship between the emergence of trade partnerships in medieval Europe and the need to distinguish the trade transactions of partners from the personal transactions of each of them was established. Author notice that already in the Middle Ages lawyers began to realize the distinction of means into those that distinguish the subjects of law and replace the signature and those that distinguish the objects of law and their properties. The problem posed by medieval jurists led to the necessity of solving the question of what exactly a firm distinguish, a merchant or a trade establishment? The solution of this question at the end of the XIX century led to the distinction between the concepts of firm and trade establishment.

The article compares the process of succession in civil law and common law. It is generally believed that the difference between them lies in the direct or indirect transfer of inheritance: in continental law the inheritance passes to the heir, while in common law the inheritance is first transferred to the personal representative and then to the heir (beneficiary). The author concludes that the reason for the difference is that in civil law the heir not only receives the inheritance, but also “liquidates” it, while in common law these tasks are distributed between the beneficiary and the personal representative. This helps to explain why common law does not provide for legates existing in civil law, and does not recognize a combination of limited and unlimited liability for the debts of the deceased. Furthermore, it follows that common law succession also provides for a universal succession that takes place not between the deceased and the beneficiary, but between the deceased and the personal representative.

Flats, non-residential premises, parking spaces, land plots for gardening and land plots in residential schemes are well-known, understandable, and widespread property in Russia. However, the rights and obligations inherently linked to the ownership of such objects are far less obvious to average Russian person: participation quota in common property, the obligation to maintain it, the right/obligation to participate in decision-making regarding such property, the obligation to refrain from construction interference in common property, not to occupy common spaces, to comply with common property use conditions, and so on. This article explores Russian legislation devoted to a special type of property that arises when parts of real estate are allocated for independent economic purposes, belonging to different individuals — individual (private) property — and parts of common use —“common property of real estate owners”. The paper proposes to term this legal regime “sectional ownership,” to develop a corresponding legislative framework based on the concept of condominium scheme, in order to eliminate the ambiguity of the definition of “common property of real estate owners” and to clarify the legally significant relationships between individual (private) and the common property in the scheme, between real rights, and between the owners of real estate (to underline the existence of co-ownership community). Additionally, the article attempts to systematize the manifestations of sectional ownership in Russian law.

The article deals with the approaches to the definition and realization of authority of judiciary in Russian pre-revolutionary criminal procedural science. After the brief characteristic of the definition of authority of judiciary its implementation in judicial organization and criminal procedure is studied. It is shown that the authority of judiciary in judicial organization requires special subsidiary bodies of judiciary, that cooperate court in the accomplishment of its main power of the administration of justice. The problem of the authority of judiciary in the aspect of pre-revolutionary criminal procedure is examined regarding its stages. The attention is focused on the way with the help of which judiciary may control a criminal process from its beginning to an end. Particularly during an inquiry police forces were placed under control of Public prosecutor’s office, and at the same time public prosecutor was considered as a subsidiary body of judiciary. On the following stages of criminal procedure the judiciary represented by judicial investigator and court resolving a dispute played a leading role. A stage of committal proceedings differentiating subject to the crime under examination is separately discussed.

Some signs of armed attacks on educational institutions characterize these events as a new youth type of terrorist activity, but unlike terrorism, school shooter does not have the goal of destabilizing the activities of the authorities. Based on the research of the circumstances of the school shootings, the methods of their commission, the level of public danger, as well as the personality of the shooters and their behavior, it is possible to identify the hallmarks that are inherent in both terrorism and armed attacks on educational institutions. In terms of sentencing severity for mass murder, the U.S. criminal provisions obviously stands out, while the Norway’s imprisonment rates are among the lowest in Europe and penal policies generally are among the mildest.

The principle of balanced budget is one of the fundamental principles of the budget system as a whole. At the same time, it is well known that budgets are mostly adopted with deficit or surplus, and the state of balance in reality is unattainable. Under such conditions, the government’s actions to equalize the budget imbalance are of particular importance. 

This article is devoted to the mechanism of ensuring budgetary stability and its constituent elements — the methods the government has at its disposal to counteract crisis phenomena. The methods are considered through the prism of existing legal institutions and are divided into direct and indirect by the way of impact on economic indicators. When analyzing the effectiveness of the legal mechanism, in addition to objective factors, the historical experience and mentality of the population are taken into account, which largely predetermine the popularity and effectiveness of certain measures. 

The article substantiates the necessity of competent legal elaboration of economic methods by means of improvement of existing and integration of new legal institutions. The institutions of borrowing, privatization, contingency funds, budget sequestration and budgetary rules are considered in the context of equalization of budgetary imbalance. Attention is paid to the issue of their correlation and priority for optimal functioning of the country’s economy.

Categorical thinking might be understood as logical generalization, which serves as a prerequisite for the existence of categories in law, including in the branch and research realm of financial law. Categorical thinking mediates the formation and substantive development of financial and legal categories. Functionally, categorical thinking not only contributes to the formation of categorical-conceptual series of financial law, but also contributes to the formation of financial legal order. At the same time, categorical thinking, while providing constructive “rigidity” of the categorical-conceptual network, is inert and can slow down the formation of new legal categories and notions in the context of rapidly changing social relations. Financial law categories such as “finance”, “financial activities of a government”, “financial system of a state”, “government credit”, “government debt”, “currency exchange regulation”, “currency exchange control”, “banking regulation”, “banking supervision” and others, are determined by financial legal norms, they structurally construct the public finance law as a law branch, reflecting the economic forms of funds flowing mediated by relations with constituent entities. Such categories are synthetic, absorbing all aspects of social relations — not only legal, but also political, economic, social, managerial, moral and ethical and others. At the same time, legal thinking produces financial and legal categories that are “analytical”, since they represent a mental concentration of purely legal features of the reflected social relations.

In the article the author considers the problem of the lack of legislative definition of the activities of non-profit organizations (hereinafter — NPO), and also compares the signs of entrepreneurial activity and activities of non-profit organizations, coming to the conclusion that the activities of commercial and non-profit legal entities differ in their content. The article analyzes judicial practice in terms of the grounds for liquidation of non-profit organizations in carrying out their statutory activities, namely, it reveals the problem associated with the restriction of activities on the territorial principle of certain organizational-legal forms of NPOs, which subsequently leads to a violation of the constitutional right of citizens to their association. 

In the article the author argues that the lack of legislative fixation of the concept of activity leads to the fact that the law enforcer represented by state bodies can give a different assessment of the activities of non-profit organizations. On two examples of public organizations (sports federation and public organization uniting representatives of creative activity) it was shown that one and the same activity can be considered by law enforcer differently, in the first case as permissible activity, in the second case, as a gross violation of the current legislation.

With the intensive spread of biotechnologies in recent years, there is an increasing need to specify and take into account the principles of bioethics in the regulation of various legal relations, including those that go beyond traditional areas such as supervision and control of biological research. Thus, the fourth part of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation establishes prohibitions on patenting and other state registration of intellectual property results that contradict public interests, principles of humanity and morality. But these principles are not specified in the legislation. At the same time, specifying and taking into account the principles of bioethics in civil law relations, including in the field of intellectual property, seems necessary in order to form a comprehensive intersectoral system of balancing the advantages and risks of new biotechnologies, in particular, preventing the use of legal mechanisms for the protection of intellectual property in violation of moral requirements. 

Based on the results of a comprehensive analysis of doctrinal and normative legal sources, the author comes to the conclusion that the list of bioethical principles to be taken into account in the legal system, in conditions of intensive development of biotechnologies and other scientific achievements, cannot be static, but is constantly expanding and changing, which must be taken into account when determining the rules of legal regulation. Moreover, it must be assumed that there is currently no universally recognized unified system of bioethical principles that could be applied as a basic model for accounting in intellectual property law. Taking into account the above, the author proposes a multilevel and intersectoral system of legal mechanisms for situational accounting of bioethics principles (both existing and those that may arise in the future) in the field of intellectual property.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the content of the principle of social responsibility of everyone for the well-being of society and the state. One of its manifestations is the principle of generational solidarity. The current trend in the development of relations between a person, society and the state in the context of current challenges and threats necessitates the search for an optimal balance between these subjects, optimizing the ratio of rights and obligations. The elements of the social responsibility structure are the subject of the specified responsibility (an individual or a group of people), the object of social responsibility (the range of social relations for the development of which the subject bears social responsibility) and the social community, acting as an authority that evaluates, stimulates and controls the subject’s activities. Consolidation of common efforts is an important guarantee of State sovereignty, independence, national interests, and economic prosperity. The article analyzes the legal regulation in this area in the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and the People’s Republic of China. The significant role of not only legal norms, but also other social norms, which remain highly effective, is emphasized, which is characteristic of Chinese traditions. 

For the Republic of Belarus, taking into account the constitutional norm on social responsibility of everyone, the need to make a feasible contribution to the development of society and the state, the concept of “positive responsibility” is the theoretical basis for filling the legal content of “social responsibility” in resolving the dichotomy “duty — obligation”.

The article presents problematic issues of determining the subject composition of administrative legal relations, their classification, and the identification of legal entities as subjects of administrative law. The author substantiates his position on the possibility of defining legal entities as subjects of administrative law by developing the norms of administrative and legal regulation, including in its historical aspect. As the main criterion for organizations that are legal entities, it is proposed to distinguish the subjects of administrative law based on their position in administrative legal relations as subjects of public administration, their exercise of public authority, and the persons to whose activities such management is directed. 

The author considers it necessary to identify the general provisions inherent in a particular group of subjects of administrative law that determine their administrative and legal status, the need for a clear division of the subject composition of administrative and legal relations and, based on this, further administrative and legal regulation, to prevent confusion in the activities of one subject in the exercise of public authority functions and conducting economic activities from one’s estate. the negative aspects of the increasingly widespread practice of granting public-legal powers to economic entities activities. The article supports the questions of researchers about the need to determine the expediency of having the rights of a legal entity from public authorities, taking into account their participation in civil turnover on behalf of public legal entities.

The importance of legal ideology is increasing not only at the national level, but also at the regional level. The problems of both scientific research and the realities of international practice regarding the categories of «national legal awareness» and «legal thinking» are changing. Increasing attention is being paid to the formation of a regional and universal ideology of interaction between countries and peoples. In this regard, the problems of forming new types of legal ideology that are not bound by state borders require their own understanding. 

The purpose of this study is to determine the structural links of an ideological nature, namely, the legal ideology of the regional level and universal character. The objectives of the work are not only the structuring of ideological components in the system of legal reality, but also the definition of tools for the development of legal ideology on the legal map of the world. 

The main method of conducting this research work is a comparative analysis of the objects of the legal sphere, which found its way out in the proposal to form a universal theory of law, which is a doctrinal component of the legal ideology of a macro-level nature. 

As the results of the conducted research, proposals for the formation of regional and universal types of legal ideology are presented. The main forms of modern regional ideology and the theoretical and methodological basis for the formation of a universal legal ideology are determined. Approaches are proposed for the use of ideological components that make up the essence of modern legal families of Romano-Germanic, Anglo-Saxon and religious-communal types. In terms of practical recommendations, it is proposed to adopt a universal international document, the object of which will be the ideological criteria for the legal rapprochement of countries and peoples. As an example, the practice of adopting national concepts of legal policy is given, one of which appeared in the post- Soviet legal space in 2023.

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the possibility of using the concept of “form of state unity”, which was introduced into scientific circulation by Oleg Ivanovich Chistyakov. To achieve this goal, the works of the scientist are analyzed, in which he reveals his views on this concept. It is noted that Chistyakov, in relation to historical and legal research, considered the concept of the form of the state adopted in theoretical and legal science to be not quite successful, not corresponding to the whole variety of historical experience of state development. The concept of a form of state unity makes it possible to synthesize not only the territorial factors of the existence of the state, but also the factor of the population, which is especially important in a multinational country. It is concluded that the concept of “form of state unity” proposed by O. I. Chistyakov may well be used in historical and legal studies. Further developments within the framework of this model will allow us to get a more accurate idea of the mechanisms used by the state authorities of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union to preserve the national unity of the country in the face of numerous challenges. Moreover, of particular importance is the fact that this material is proposed for publication in the year of the 100th anniversary of the outstanding scientist, a representative of the glorious Moscow Law School, the pearl of which — Moscow University — will turn 270 years old in 2025!

The article sets and uses concrete examples to solve the problem of identifying of the directions of continuity in the development of the scientific heritage of Serafim Vladimirovich Yushkov by his students and followers. The contribution of the scientist to the development of the conceptual foundations of historical and legal science is shown. It is noted that S. V. Yushkov’s students continued to develop topics related to the integration of peoples within the Russian Empire and the USSR, and adhered to the approaches he developed to periodization and methodology of historical and legal research. It is revealed that at the end of the twentieth century, attempts were made in the domestic scientific and educational literature to revise a number of conceptual provisions of S. V. Yushkov’s scientific heritage, including on the issues of periodization of the course of the history of state and law, its spatial characteristics. It is concluded that the study of the state and law, culture and history of the peoples inhabiting the countries bordering Russia is of great practical importance, contributes to the development of a scientifically sound policy, allowing integrate neighbors within a single cultural and economic space. This indicates the continuing importance of S. V. Yushkov’s ideas in relation to the need to study the history of the state and the rights of the peoples of the post-Soviet space. The article emphasizes the political importance of studying the history of the state and law, which goes beyond the framework of jurisprudence.

This message is an extremely curious and valuable for the history of Moscow University recollection of one of its outstanding students — Veniamin Evgenievich Chirkin. It is especially important that these materials will be published on the pages of the Moscow University Bulletin on the eve of its 270th anniversary.

Transfer of certain governmental authority constituting the scope of public authorities’ competence, not assuming its general alienation, is a common pattern of our times and in legal science is referred to as “delegation”. This article is supposed to clarify the essence of “delegation” as a notion of constitutional law. For this purpose, delegation is considered as a specific constitutional law notion on the one hand and as a general legal notion traced back to the early legal sources such as Digest of Justinian on the other. Recognized as a separate notion, “delegation” is proposed to be considered with reference to such notions as “state”, “governmental authority”, “separation of powers” and others. Analysis of the notions mentioned above regard to the constitutional law context has made it possible to define delegation in the light of philosophical ideas about the essence of governmental authority and public entities to which it belongs. For instance, ascertaining that governmental authority exclusively belongs to a public-law entity (the state) allowed to designate a specific subject of constitutional delegation, which is neither sovereignty nor state power, but governmental authority shared between the separate branches of government. Besides descripting specific features of constitutional delegation, the article also provides some undermining them in recent decades trends, namely, legislative delegation (i. e. delegation of law-making authority by the legislature to the executive) and private delegation (i. e. delegation of governmental authority to nongovernmental entities).

This article is devoted to the issues of liability for criminal acts against justice in the criminal law of France and Germany. The authors examine the conceptual features of the model of criminal liability for criminal acts against justice in each of the specified legal orders. The article concludes that there are different approaches to establishing liability for criminal acts against justice in French and German criminal law. The French model of criminal liability for criminal encroachments on the interests of justice assumes the inclusion in the latter of not only the acts of individuals participating in legal proceedings, but also the acts of officials committed in connection with the administration of justice. Also, in the criminal law of France, criminal acts against the interests of justice include encroachments on the health and other benefits of both officials and individuals, if these acts are committed in connection with the administration of justice. The German model of criminal liability for criminal acts against justice is based on a narrow approach, according to which criminal attacks on justice are limited to acts of private individuals participating in various types of legal proceedings.

This article discusses the key conditions of liability of information intermediaries for violations of intellectual property rights. The presentation of the terms is accompanied not only by an analysis of judicial practice and legislative provisions, but also by a study of doctrinal views on the division of copyright and patent infringements into direct and indirect. Such a division of violations is uncharacteristic for the domestic legal consciousness, mainly the signs of this concept are found in the legislation of common law countries (UK, USA). However, it is possible to find similar features in Russian legislation, namely, in art. 1253.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation “Specifics of the responsibility of an information intermediary”. The author explains how to distinguish an information intermediary from a user so that the information intermediary can prove his innocence. What actions can he use to do this? What can be considered necessary and sufficient measures to stop the infringement of intellectual property rights? The article also focuses on the model of civil liability of the information intermediary in order to facilitate understanding of the problem of independent responsibility of the information intermediary in relation to the responsibility of the direct user, or they will be jointly responsible for the violation of intellectual rights.

The scientific heritage of Professor, Doctor of Law M. K. Treushnikov continues to be relevant for various systems of legal regulation. The sphere of regulation of insolvency (bankruptcy) relations is no exception, reflecting not only the need for clear resolution of legal disputes, but also the tasks related to the effective distribution of the debtor’s property and protection of creditors’ rights. The issues of evidence in such cases are of particular importance, as they determine the fairness and transparency of decisions. This article analyses the main provisions of M. K. Treushnikov’s theory of evidence, their practical implementation in bankruptcy cases and the significance of these approaches for improving the efficiency of court proceedings. The author analyses the adaptation and application of M. K. Treushnikov’s ideas in domestic judicial practice, including the use of presumptions, disclosure of evidence and standards for its evaluation. The article also focuses on procedural tools that allow courts to maintain objectivity and transparency in resolving conflicts between parties. The author emphasises the universality of the approaches proposed by the scholar, noting their importance for legal science in the context of permanent development of insolvency court practice.

Criminology has established categories and concepts, this is its language, which should be used correctly by all criminologists, both researchers of relevant issues and law enforcement officers. These categories and concepts have their own interpretation, which reflects their place in the system of forensic concepts, as well as their place in the structures of scientific and practical research. For this reason, their correct use ensures the objectification of conclusions based on the results of these studies. In modern criminology, there are objective problems associated with attempts to formulate the concepts of “crime mechanism” and “criminalistic characteristics of crimes” in research, their place in the system of concepts of the theory of criminology and methods of crime investigation. The study of the concepts of “crime mechanism” and “criminalistic characteristics of crimes”, the content of these concepts, allowed us to substantiate their correspondence in the system of concepts of criminology as a science. The established attitude indicates that these concepts are different in their essence and their elementary systemic content cannot, in one way or another, be suppressed. In the system of investigation methodology, the relation of these concepts can be expressed by the correspondence “crime mechanism” — criminalistic characteristics of crimes” due to the different methodological purpose of these concepts.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the consideration of the sovereignty of the state from the point of view of international and constitutional law. The differences in understanding the impact of international law and constitutional norms on sovereignty are highlighted and erroneous approaches to this issue are identified, which consist in seeking recognition of the limitation of state sovereignty, denying its constitutional origin and the result of the institutionalization of national sovereignty and statehood. Thus, the author comes to conclusions about the application of completely different criteria to the assessment of sovereignty by international and constitutional law. The author finds no reason to conclude that sovereignty is limited both in international relations, for example, when joining an international organization, and in constitutional relations from the point of view of constitutionalism. From this point of view, the author examines and compares existing approaches to the reception of international law norms in the national legal system in a new way. The author comes to conclusion that, considering modern trends in the development of law, the theoretical concepts of monism and dualism do not exist in their pure form in practice, regardless of which approach to the reception of international law norms is fixed at the constitutional level.

The article examines the trends and main results of the development of research in the field of legal informatics, information and digital law at the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov MSU. It is noted that the designation of Moscow University as the lead organization for scientific issues of information security of a humanitarian nature contributed to the intensification of research in the field of information law and information security, as well as the participation of the Faculty of Law from 1998 to 2010 in the implementation of MSU projects. The results of interdisciplinary legal research obtained over 25 years were introduced into the educational process of the Faculty of Law, the Higher School of Public Audit of Moscow State University and the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University in the form of new curricula and courses. An interdisciplinary approach was incorporated into the structure of the courses taught in the interfaculty master’s program “Information Legal Relations in the Innovative Economy”, opened in 2016 at the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. 

In the context of the formation of a digital economy, a new branch of law is simultaneously being created — digital law, which has its own subject of legal regulation. This process cannot be ignored, since “cross-cutting technologies” in the digital economy require legal regulation and protection of information during their use. Legal scholars are increasingly debating the well-known legal structures and the possibility of their use in new conditions, for example, the use of artificial intelligence technology. Certainly, the formation of the scientific apparatus and concept of digital law requires coordination of efforts in conducting interdisciplinary scientific research.

The article presents the contribution of Moscow University scientists to the development of the science of civil procedure law in the post-Soviet period. The main directions of scientific research conducted at the Department of Civil Procedure are considered. The article presents the contribution of Moscow University scientists to the development of the science of civil procedure law in the post-Soviet period. The directions of scientific research conducted at the Department of Civil Procedure are considered. The doctrine of judicial evidence and evidence in civil proceedings has been put forward as the main direction. The contribution of scientists and teachers of the department to the formation of the Moscow school of judicial evidence is shown. Successfully formed and updated such areas of research as: subjects of civil procedure law, their legal status and procedural status; theory of forms of protection of subjective rights (legitimate interests), — justice and non-judicial forms of resolution and settlement of civil law disputes (notary, arbitration, mediation, etc.); verification and revision of judicial acts in civil procedure; accessibility of justice in civil cases in Russia. Scientific research on the specifics of the consideration and resolution of civil cases, initiated at the department in Soviet times, has received general recognition and has been introduced into the teaching program of civil procedure law at the international level. The methodology of scientific research and teaching of civil procedure law is a separate and constant concern of the entire staff of the department. All research is moving along an evolutionary path: the valuable material accumulated by scientists in the Soviet and pre-revolutionary period is taken into account. The relevance of earlier scientific results for modern doctrine and legislation on civil proceedings and forms of protection of subjective law (legitimate interest) is shown. The prospects of science and teaching of civil procedure law at Moscow University are outlined.

The article examines the history of the development of the science of commercial law at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The authors, based on the study of a number of normative sources and works of Russian legal scholars such as Leshkov V. N., Nersesov N. O., Gusakov A. G., Nefedyev N. A., Shershenevich G. F., Krasnokutsky V. A., comprehend the epistemology of modern commercial law and the basic principles of its construction. In the article, the authors note the continuity of research in the field of commercial law in the works of Agarkov M. M., Genkin D. M., Lunts L. A., Peretersky I. S., Goykhbarg A. G., Yaichkov K. K. and many other famous scientists. A special role in the article is given to the professor and scientific director of the Department of Commercial Law Boris Ivanovich Puginsky, who not only revived the teaching of commercial law within the walls of Moscow University, but also laid the doctrinal and methodological basis of the modern science of commercialism — the science of commercial (trade) law. Today, the Department of Commercial Law and the Fundamentals of Jurisprudence is represented by a large scientific heritage in the form of publications of monographs, textbooks and scientific articles and a team of highly professional teachers promoting the ideas of commercial law in the student community.

The article examines the development of areas of legal science in the field of nature conservation, environmental protection and rational use of natural resources, which resulted in the formation of scientific schools of environmental, natural resource and agrarian law. The article reveals the reflection of achievements in the legal doctrine in a number of natural resource Laws of the USSR and the RSFSR of 1960–1975, which influenced the development of international law, including the generally recognized principles and norms contained in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki, August 1, 1975), which ultimately manifested itself in Article 18 of the Constitution (Basic Law) of the USSR of 1977. All this served as a further development of the science of natural resource law and environmental protection, subsequently — environmental law, the formation of traditions, a prominent representative of which is V. V. Petrov. Under his leadership, the department, and after his death in 1995 — under the leadership of A. K. Golichenkova, Department of Environmental Land Law, Faculty of Law, Moscow State University, the doctrine of environmental law and natural resource branches of law was further developed in scientific research and in teaching the relevant academic disciplines. The article examines the implementation of the achievements of the science of environmental law and natural resource branches of law in the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993, the Federal Law on Environmental Protection and federal natural resource laws, law enforcement practice, among which the following should be highlighted: the permit type of legal regulation of relations in the field of environmental protection and rational use of natural resources, the priority of public interests in regulating these relations, the presumption of environmental hazard of any planned economic and other activity and its development.

270th anniversary of the Lomonosov Moscow State University allows us to summarize the scientific activity of the Centre for Criminal Procedure, Justice and Prosecutorial Oversight in the 20 years since the 250th anniversary. This period was eventful and interesting. The article discusses the main achievements of the Centre in criminal procedure’s matter.

The article analyzes the problems of the formation, revival and development of private law at Moscow University. The authors identify three main historical stages in the domestic legal system that private law (civil law) science has passed through and represent them: the pre-revolutionary stage (the stage of formation of private law in Russia); the Soviet period, in which, in the absence of private law, civil law proper and the corresponding civil law, civil law science developed; the post-Soviet stage, in which the restoration of private law and its further development took place, combining both classical private law concepts and modern approaches. The emphasis is on the fact that the teachers of Moscow University and its Department of Civil Law have consistently sought to solve a two-pronged task: to obtain new scientific knowledge in the field of private law through its in-depth scientific study and their subsequent transfer to students by giving university education a fundamental scientific character. Roman private law replaces the general theory of civil law with such a formulation of civil law education, therefore, at Moscow University, the teaching of civil law was initially combined with the teaching of Roman private law. Throughout history, the study and teaching of Roman law by the civilists of Moscow University has been and remains their “trademark”. The authors emphasize that the participation of teachers of the department in legislative work and law enforcement practice turned out to be extremely useful and had a beneficial effect both on the teaching of civil (private) law and on its scientific research, which contributed to the development of domestic civil law on a private legal basis. Currently, the department implements major scientific and educational projects, therefore, there is every reason to assert that the modern staff of the Department of Civil Law of Moscow University has not only preserved the best traditions of fundamental university education and scientific research in the field of civics, laid down by remarkable Russian civilists and novelists back in the XIX century, but also actively contributed to the revival and development of domestic private law rights in the field of legislation, doctrine and teaching.

The article shows the nature and evolution of theoretical and legal sciences in Russia. In the 21st century, a feature of the sciences of fundamental jurisprudence is the comparative method of research, manifested in a combination of ideographic (individualizing) and nomological (generalizing) approaches to the study of law and state. It is noted that it is not enough to consider law and the state only from the perspective of the science of the general theory of law — understanding their meaning and essence involves studying the genesis, ontology and axiology of these social phenomena. The contribution of the Department of Theory of State and Law and Political Science of the Law Faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. is shown. Lomonosov into modern theoretical and legal science. The complex interdisciplinary nature of the works prepared by teachers of the Department of Theory of State and Law and Political Science is emphasized, which demonstrates the results of many years of methodological developments in the areas of general theory of law, history of political and legal doctrines, comparative law, philosophy of law and sociology of law.

In the article, the author draws attention to the importance of the history of the state and law, primarily the national state and law, in the process of teaching law students of higher educational institutions. Attention is drawn to the peculiarities of studying this discipline at the law faculties of universities. The difficulties encountered by teachers of the history of the national state and law are called. The close connection of the history of state and law with another basic discipline, the theory of state and law, is shown. The place of the history of the national state and law as a basic science in the system of legal sciences is considered. The special place of the history of state and law as a completely independent science among the branch sciences is shown. The article draws attention to the historical and legal research of specialists in the field of sectoral legal disciplines. The author identifies three ways in which industry researchers work on the history of their subject. One is relatively harmless, and has been in the retelling for a long time.

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia's leading and oldest university, celebrates its 270th anniversary on January 25, 2025.

The national motto is one of the symbols of state sovereignty, along with the anthem, flag, coat of arms, etc. In this capacity, the motto performs ideological and political functions, demonstrating the national idea and determining state policy. But in addition to this, a national motto can also have important legal significance, serving as one of the criteria for respecting human rights and freedoms. The motto of modern France, “Liberty, equality, fraternity,” is an interesting example of normative prescriptions that give rise to legal consequences. The French national motto arose during the revolution of 1789. Throughout the 19th century it gradually took root in the public consciousness, eventually becoming the official symbol of the Republic in 1880. Since the emergence of the Constitutional Council in France (in 1959), the principles of the motto have been consistently interpreted through the practice of constitutional normative control. The principle of freedom is understood as the state’s non-interference in the private lives of citizens and at the same time as its duty to create conditions for the realization of their rights. The principle of equality is also revealed in two aspects: as the prohibition of discrimination and as the equality of all citizens before the law. The principle of fraternity received a constitutional interpretation in 2018. It means the highest solidarity and mutual assistance between people. Thus decisions of the Constitutional Council turned the solemn words of the national motto into legal norms. Today the motto is part of the French constitutional block; the laws of parliament must comply with the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity. 

The presented article uses historical, analytical, dialectical, comparative and dogmatic methods. Using the example of France, the author shows the legal nature of the national motto, its role and significance in the mechanism for the protection of human rights and freedoms. France’s experience in constitutionalizing state symbols can be taken into account in Russia, where there is no national motto nowadays.

The subject of the study is the issue of correlation between illegality and abuse of right. Such aspects of illegal behaviour as violation of general principles of law and legal obligations are considered. Various doctrinal concepts and views on the abuse of right and its illegality, as well as approaches of judicial practice to this issue are analysed. 

As a result, it was established that the abuse of right is always illegal, in view of which the concept of so-called «legal abuse of right» cannot exist, because it is not a legal, but a philosophical category. From the legal point of view «legal abuse of right» is nothing more than the exercise of right, and therefore any reasoning about it is devoid of practical sense, while in the violation of the obligation not to use the right with the exclusive purpose of causing harm to others and lies the wrongfulness of the abuse of right. 

The article also considers the essence of wrongfulness as a violation of general legal principles and legal duties, from which the author concludes that any concepts claiming to substantiate the essence of wrongfulness with the help of any type of legal understanding are untenable. Otherwise, there will remain logical contradictions, as well as gaps in legal regulation that have not been filled.

On April 16, 2024, the Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University hosted an International Round Table “International Labour Law: Genesis, Problems and Prospects of Development (to the 120th Anniversary of the First Labour Agreement and the 105th Anniversary of the ILO)”. The participants of the round table — representatives of the bodies of the Eurasian Economic Union, officials of state authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation, representatives of state authorities of foreign countries and representatives of leading educational and scientific centers devoted their speeches to the history, current problems and future development of international labour law. This review presents the abstracts of the participants’ reports on many theoretical and practical issues of international legal regulation of labour.

The article examines the formation and activities of scientific schools of Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov, the Law Faculty of Moscow State University on the example of the scientific school of the Department of Business Law. In a relatively short period of time, the department was able to create a team of like-minded people, the results of whose activities meet all the necessary requirements of a modern scientific school. The article examines the main areas of scientific research in the field of business law, the relationship of scientific research of the department with the areas of research in other branches of law: civil, civil procedure, labor (other private law disciplines), administrative, financial and other public law disciplines. Particular attention is paid to the mutual influence of economics and law, taking into account the subject of legal regulation. The scientific school of the Department of Business Law is closely connected with the educational process. The achievements and features of the educational process at the department are shown, the goals and objectives facing its staff in training modern lawyers with a fundamental education and a broad range of knowledge in the field of law are defined.

The article discusses incorrect theoretical positions about the essence of criminology as a scientific discipline engaged in direct forensic activities in the investigation of crimes and that this activity is carried out by an investigator. The functional and other features of the activities of a forensic investigator are outlined.

The article highlights the most important milestones in the life and creative path of the largest legal historian, Oleg Ivanovich Chistyakov, from the Great Patriotic War to the end of his life. His contribution to the development of historical and legal science is noted, as the initiator, editor of the entire publication, as well as the author of the 9‑volume “Russian Legislation of the X–XX centuries”, for the publication of which in 1996, already in modern Russia, he, as the head of work, together with some members of the author’s team, was awarded the State Prize for the first time among legal historians the prize of the Russian Federation and awarded the title of “Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation”. 

O. I. Chistyakov was the first president of the Russian Historical and Legal Society, established in 2000. He is the developer of the problems of the form of state unity, the author of the allocation of the state with autonomous entities as a special form, attributing Russia not to the federation, but specifically to this form of the state. The issues raised by the author in his works are not outdated and are relevant. O. I. Chistyakov’s scientific works, as well as educational literature prepared by him or a team of authors under his editorship, are still being published and are in demand.

The article critically analyzes the current reform of public broadcasting (öffentlich-rechtlicher Rundfunk) in Germany, which began in 2020 with the adoption of Interstate Media Treaty and reached its maximum intensity in 2024, when the Expert Council of the Broadcasting Commission of federal states proposed the first draft of changes providing for a systemic restructuring of the institute. Focusing on the proposals for the transformation of public broadcasting in 2024, they are being evaluated for compliance with the constitutional and legal guarantees of the German communication order, which the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany throughout the post-war period deduced from the communication rights enshrined in article 5 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. To achieve this, the project of the contemporary reform is compared with the current model of public broadcasting, formed by the positions of the court in constitutionalized ordinary legislation, and constitutional-legal consequences of its implementation are forecasted, incorporating socio-political context. Existing issues within German public broadcasting are not excluded from consideration. As a result of the analysis, it is stated that in the case of the implementation of this reform, the postwar communication order of Germany, established by the Western Allies and legalized in the constitution, constitutional justice positions and legislation, will undergo a serious transformation through the growth of three main trends: centralization of regulation and management of public broadcasting; depoliticization and de-parliamentarization of public broadcasting; the neutralization of constitutional and legal guarantees of the independence of public broadcasting, primarily related to financing and its internal organization. It is suggested that the proposed reform is potentially incompatible with the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Forensic means of investigating the circumstances of a case involving objects of fine art are considered. Pre-criminal and criminal situations are distinguished. Illegal actions in the sphere of circulation of objects and works of art are investigated. Attention is focused on the crime provided for in Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which may include objects and works of art. In this regard, the following concepts are analyzed: “misleading”, “deception”, “breach of trust”, “theft”. It is proven that conducting a comprehensive forensic art examination at the initial stage is necessary to establish the subject of the crime under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. General scientific methods are used — comparison, juxtaposition; analysis, synthesis, analogy; logical methods: deduction, induction; empirical method — review of criminal legislation; forensic methods — structural-functional; building versions; private expert methods: art criticism and handwriting examination. Scientific novelty lies in: 1) clarification of the subject of the crime, according to Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, related to objects of art; 2) in the classification of objects of criminal attacks in order to clarify the circumstances of the commission of crimes related to objects of art; 3) in optimizing the forensic recommendation for the appointment of a comprehensive forensic art history examination, necessary to establish the authorship, authenticity or counterfeitness of objects of art in the group of crimes related to objects of art.

In the penitentiary systems of states, scientific information about the personality of convicts is important. International standards specifically emphasize the need to obtain reliable data on the trends and characteristics of the prison population. Conducted in December 2022, the Ninth Special Census aims to replenish the available statistical data on the identity of convicts serving sentences of imprisonment and forced labor, as well as persons detained in pre-trial detention centers in Russia. The need to conduct a special census was based not only on the modern needs of improving penal policy, but also on the basis of respect for historical traditions. The practice of conducting special censuses was typical for the period of the existence of the USSR, and it continued in modern Russia. 

The article examines the genesis, development and current state of the practice of conducting special censuses of convicts, and reveals the historical, organizational and methodological features of their conduct. Emphasis is placed on the personality of scientists who made a significant contribution to the origin and development of this method of studying the personality of the offender. The general features and features of the Ninth Special Census of convicts and persons in custody are analyzed, and their theoretical justification is given. The parameters of the census and the forms of its implementation are also disclosed.

The purpose of this article is to identify the constitutional meaning of the rules establishing responsibility in the sphere of citizenship of the Russian Federation. In constitutional law, there are sanctions such as cancellation of the decision on granting citizenship, termination of citizenship, deprivation of citizenship. The Constitution of the Russian Federation prohibits deprivation of citizenship. Nevertheless, the current legal regulation allows for the application of constitutional sanctions that interrupt the political and legal connection with the Russian Federation. The Federal Law of 2023 “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation” provides for the institution of termination of citizenship, which involves the loss of a person’s legal connection with the state both voluntarily (renouncing citizenship of the Russian Federation of his own free will) and involuntarily — regardless of the person’s wishes. It seems that forcible termination of citizenship should be considered as one of the measures of the constitutional responsibility of an individual. The basis for this liability is the commission of a constitutional offense incompatible with the high status of a Russian citizen. The law provides for two groups of grounds for compulsory termination of citizenship: ex ante grounds — which occurred before the decision on admission to citizenship was made; ex post grounds — which occurred after the decision to grant citizenship was made.

The principle of the welfare state presupposes the active participation of the executive branch in the fair distribution of resources, significantly changing the balance of power in the traditional system of separation of powers, creating an imbalance not in favor of the legislative branch and weakening the latter. In the field of social policy, Parliament is losing its role as one of the leading links in the system of separation of powers, ceding the role of de facto legislator to the government and turning into an administrative machine for plebiscite approval of government initiatives. The Government uses the institutions of legislative power both for the actual regulation of social policy, including the establishment of standards of social life, income, and social support measures, and to expand its own powers, turning into a de facto legislator in this area. The latter thesis is confirmed by the quantitative and qualitative indicators given in the article, for example, a high level of support for government social initiatives. The latter are adopted practically unchanged, and the control of the legislator is of a legal and technical nature. The result of lawmaking is not the law as a rule of conduct and the will of the legislature, but the law as an act of the government, that is, the law only in the formal sense. The removal of the legislator from an active role in social policy suggests a violation of the principle of separation of powers. One of the ways to restore balance is to transfer direct management of the social sphere to autonomous decentralized agencies while maintaining effective parliamentary control over them, including the legislative procedure for the establishment of such departments, their accountability to parliament, as well as the participation of parliament in the appointment of their senior management.

The concept of legal regulation of labor relations, in which a foreign organization acts on the employer’s side, has been awaiting its formation for a long time. The economic and legal conditions of economic life and business activity in Russia, as well as abroad, have long since changed dramatically. At the same time, national standards do not take into account the specifics of work in organizations with a cross-border nature of activity, and international standards are not distinguished by certainty. Such an economic and legal phenomenon as a transnational corporation has a certain impact on the vision of the situation and legal decisions. Traditional ideas about transnational corporations blur the difference between employers with a complex structure (employers with separate structural divisions) and integration groups of employers so far generally ignored by the legislator, limiting the circle of foreign employers only to those that have a commercial nature of activity. This approach is not acceptable for relations in the sphere of labor, the legal regulation of which must take into account the diversity of methods and forms of organizing the activities of economic entities, including activities of a cross-border nature. To avoid difficulties with legal qualifications, the concept of “transnational corporation” should be perceived in the scope and with the content that corresponds to the term denoting it.

In Part 4 of Article 1349 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the liver of the results of intellectual activity that cannot be objects of patent rights is fixed (the list of non-patent objects). Some bioethical principles have been fixed in this legal norm, which is certainly necessary in the context of the rapid development of biotechnologies. But from the point of view of law enforcement, this norm seems to be incomplete and requires specification. Moreover, as indicated in the article, these provisions of Russian civil legislation are not a very successful compilation of the provisions of the European declaration. 

The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of international agreements and norms of foreign law, according to the results of which the author made proposals for a significant change in the legal structure of Part 4 of Article 1349 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and its addition with relevant principles of bioethics, which it seems necessary to take into account in patent law in correspondence with the norms of special legislation. In addition, to increase the effectiveness and optimality of law enforcement practice, based on the results of a comparative analysis of concretized examples of patent prohibitions with the provisions of special laws in the field of health protection, legal algorithms for the application of these prohibitions, arising from their legal nature, were identified.

The article presents the text of one of the few surviving monuments of Roman law — the Tabula Baetica, containing an agreement of fiducia with a creditor. The author has translated this document and conducted a detailed analysis of its content. Special attention is given to the analysis of the institution of mancipatio and to the controversial issues in civil law, such as the status of the Tabula Baetica: whether this document was a real contract or a model of security, as well as the question of the completeness or fragmentary nature of this legal monument. The study includes toponymic and archaeological analysis, discusses the features of individual provisions of the Tabula Baetica, including possible engraving errors in the document, and assesses its significance for modern legal science. The work considers various viewpoints of researchers, identifies and explains key legal aspects, emphasizing the importance of the Tabula Baetica for understanding the development of Roman law and its influence on modern legal systems. The author analyzes individual fragments of the text, relying on classical jurists and contemporary research, which allows for a deeper understanding of the context and application of this legal instrument.

The author comments on the ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in case No. A45–19074/2021. There is a view that this ruling classified damages recovered in criminal proceedings in connection with a criminal offense as punitive damages. The author refutes this view, since it is unreasonable to believe that the Supreme Court had the goal of completely reformatting Chapter 59 of the Civil Code in the ruling of the Economic Chamber, and proves that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation had the goal only of prohibiting the commercial court from resolving the issue of returning the amount paid under the sentence of the general court jurisdiction, that is, it resolved the issue of the competence of the courts. From this ruling, it is impossible to draw any far-reaching conclusions on substantive law. The position of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the issue of the competence of courts in the assignment of rights has been criticized, since it is based on an unreasonably broad interpretation of Art. 383 Civil Code. In this interpretation, one can only support the Court’s decision to determine courts’ jurisdiction over a substantive relationship based on the moment of its emergence and not on any further developments (such as claim’s assignment, succession, etc.).

theoretical and practical legal study of the problems of legal regulation and the practical implementation of the right of complaints of citizens and organizations against decisions, actions (inactions) of public authorities authorized to provide state and municipal services was carried out. The importance and place of the legal institution of state and municipal services in the system of Russian law is considered. The features of the right of complaint in the process of obtaining state and municipal services as a guarantee of legality in public administration are studied. The historical and legislative conditions for the introduction of the sub-institution of pre-trial appeal into the structure of the institute of state and municipal services are determined. The following problems of legal regulation of the procedure for filing and considering complaints from recipients of state and municipal services have been identified:(1) the need to form a conceptual apparatus for pre-trial appeal; (2) building its model within the framework of the more general administrative-legal institution of the right of complaint; (3) features of the protection and restoration of the rights and legitimate interests of recipients of state and municipal services; (4) the ratio of general and special norms in this area. 

Based on the results of a study of theoretical and legislative foundations, as well as materials from judicial practice on the consideration of public law disputes in the field of state and municipal services, proposals were made to improve the legal institution of the right of administrative complaint.

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.

This article elaborates and illustrates the theses presented by the author in the scientific report “Research on the problem of combating corruption in society in the Russian science of constitutional law” at the meeting of the Academic Council of the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University on October 20, 2023. 

Anti-corruption issues are considered as a promising area of research that can intensify discussion of the shortcomings of the legal structure of power relations as a subject of constitutional law. The article contributes to the development of scientific tools for studying the problems of political (systemic) corruption by means of constitutional and legal knowledge. The author substantiates not only the possibility, but also the inevitability and great potential of studying the problem of corruption in society in the domestic constitutional and legal science. 

The following topics are revealed: 1) The reason for the emergence of anticorruption research in the Russian science of constitutional law; 2) The main incentives for the development of interdisciplinary anti-corruption theory; 3) The concentration of scientific research in the field of combating corruption directly within the framework of Russian constitutional and legal science; 4) The structure of anti-corruption problems in constitutional and legal science; 5) The importance of anti-corruption issues for the development of modern sciences of Russian constitutional law. Conclusions are drawn about the need to support this topic, which is at the same time practically in demand and allows us to develop serious scientific research in domestic constitutional law in the current conditions.

Values approach to the substance and interpretation of constitution originates from Weimar Germany and after World War II was adopted and applied by the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) soon after it’s establishing. Declaring the constitution as “objective order of values” inspired legal scholars in Germany and abroad to develop the value theory of law and borrowed by courts of Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Venezuela and Russia. At the same time jurisprudence of values became an object of sharp critics, manifested in a book published in Germany in 1960 by Carl Schmitt — Tyranny of values and later developed by other authors. Opposing their arguments, author defenses the values method of constitutional interpretation and describes the features and specificity of thinking about constitution as a system of values. Author reasons that values are not aggressive, do not pretend to dominate over norms and principles and are not subjective. The author’s position supports the idea that values choice is not rational, while states that this does not impede to keep law certain and predictable — if the values, found by courts behind the legal norms and principles and applies in concrete cases, will be explicitly defined and consequently and non-contradictorily realized in judicial practice.

The relevance of the research is due to the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies and their active introduction into the economic activities of a modern employer. This trend generates quite a few theoretical and practical issues in the field of labor law, especially taking into account the desire of the legislator to stimulate the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence technologies and adopt appropriate regulatory regulation in the foreseeable future. In the article, the author analyzes the practice of using artificial intelligence technologies in labor relations and comes to the conclusion that there is a need to improve domestic labor law. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms of legal regulation of the digital economy, the author suggests possible approaches to improving labor law in the context of the development of artificial intelligence technologies. A general approach to improving labor law can be provided through the development and approval of strategic planning documents in the field of labor. The use of “smart regulation” methods, including legal experiments and public consultations, will allow assessing the effectiveness of various options for the proposed regulatory framework in advance. Finally, it seems reasonable to take into account the accumulated experience of applying “soft law”, in particular, the ideas contained in the Code of Ethics in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

This article is devoted to the legal analysis of the qualification of the armed conflict in the Donbass in the period from March 2014 to February 21, 2022, which is decisive for establishing the legal consequences entitled by this particular form of armed conflict. In order to establish the most objective legal assessment of this conflict, the positions of representatives of the Western and Ukrainian doctrines of international law are considered, as well as an analysis of historical facts and documents of international organizations. A study of Ukrainian and Western scientific sources showed the similarity of the positions of their authors in attempts to qualify armed conflict that took place in Donbass in the appointed time period, as international or as internationalized. At the same time, references either to propaganda editions, or to advertising and unproven events serve as an argument for such statements. At the same time, an analysis of the objective circumstances and the most authoritative documents of international organizations only casts doubt on the consistency of the material that those authors describe, but also casts to make completely different conclusions. Considering the approval of the Set of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements by the UN Security Council, and also drawing the attention to the facts, it becomes obvious the non-international nature of the conflict in Donbass.

Throughout the XX–XXI centuries, the Russian criminal legislation, along with traditional provisions on instigation, contains norms that provide for independent (outside the framework of complicity) responsibility for public calls for the implementation of criminal activity. The article analyzes the views of the Russian theory of criminal law on the correlation of instigation with public incitement to commit specific criminal acts in the Criminal Code of 1903, counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda provided for by Soviet criminal laws, as well as public calls for criminal activity in the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The existence of these norms in different historical periods is explained primarily by the actual limits (to a greater or lesser extent) of complicity and inchoate crimes. The expansion of the range of punishable acts primarily pursues the goal to protect the existing state system, public order and security. At the same time, the limits of such criminalization and the distinction between incitement and public appeals cannot be determined by a simple technical opposition of their features, but must be established by understanding the very concept of public appeals to commit certain criminal acts. The difficulties observed today in their differentiation are not in the least connected with the changing legislative constructions throughout the century, which predetermines the interest in their historical analysis.

Particular emphasis in the work is given to the lack of a legal definition of the concept of “provision of electric power transmission services” in the legislation. This does not allow us to determine the scope of the contract, as well as the content of the actions carried out in the provision of electric power transmission services. The question of the advisability of including a condition on the quality of electric power as an essential condition of the contract by analogy with an energy supply contract is considered. 

The work examines the general legal nature, differences from the agreement on technological connection, including parties “to the contract legal rights arising in the course of the contract, and its public and binding nature”. 

Despite the approach declared by law regarding the public nature of the contract, the procedure for sending an offer to conclude it does not comply with the rules established by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on public contracts. In this regard, at the end of the work, proposals were formulated to improve the legislation when the agreement is concluded in the legal form of an adhesion agreement.

The article represents the abstracts of the report at the plenary session of the joint XXIV International Scientific and Practical Conference “Legal Support of Russian Sovereignty: Problems and Prospects”

Based on an analysis of legal norms and the original texts of the constituent documents, the publication argues that the constituent acts of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS, i. e. the Agreement on the creation of the CIS of December 8, 1991 and the Protocol to it of December 21, 1991) came into full force on December 21, 1991. Thus, the Commonwealth as an interstate association was formed precisely on this date, December 21, 1991, and not December 8, 1991, as is widespread in domestic legal science. At the same time, based on an analysis of official information from the CIS Executive Committee, a reasoned answer is given to a question that has not previously been covered in legal science (Russian, and especially foreign) — on what date did the constituent acts of the Commonwealth fully come into force for each CIS member state? In addition, the publication assesses the legal status in the Commonwealth of Azerbaijan, Georgia (before its withdrawal from the CIS in 2009), Moldova and Ukraine.

The article analyzes the role and place of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and its principles in regulating relations related to the use of wage labor and constituting the subject of labor law, as well as issues of practical application of international and sectoral principles of law in the field of labor. The issues related to the consolidation and development of constitutional principles in the labor legislation of the Russian Federation are analyzed. First of all, these are the basic principles of legal regulation of labor relations and other directly related relations, enshrined in Article 2 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. It is clarified that the principles are not “slogans” and purely theoretical constructions — they should be actively used at the stages of rulemaking and law enforcement. This provision is illustrated by the judicial practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The problem of the correlation of such important categories as politics, economics and law is touched upon, the need for an optimal ratio of their inherent mechanisms in all spheres is emphasized.

Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset was debuted at the annual WWDC on 5 June 2023, the new headset seamlessly blends the real world and virtual world, the Vision Pro can be controlled by voice, hands and eye movement. The rapid development of technology also brings corresponding risks to people, which include not only privacy violation, but also injuries such as dizziness, migraine, brain injury, etc. .At present, although China has a number of legal regulations on the risks of new technology, they are still not perfect for such a latest model of mixed reality headset. The article presents and analyzes the risks of using a mixed reality headset, reveals the problems of imperfections in the current legislation in China, and suggests ways to overcome the shortcomings.

The legal regulation of deprivation of liberty as a measure of criminal liability is not limited to criminal law rules on its purpose and other application. Punishment by imprisonment is associated with a whole complex of regulatory norms of criminal executive, criminal procedural and other sectoral legislation. A conclusion is made about the complex nature of the formation of the legal status of deprivation of liberty and on this basis a differentiation is made of the elements that form it, depending on their functional purpose, influence on the content and nature of the origin of other legal institutions and measures of criminal law. Theoretical foundations of penitentiary criminopenology are being developed, which allows us to talk about classifying deprivation of liberty as a type of punishment as a penitentiary type of criminal liability. This direction creates the prerequisites for a comprehensive solution to the problem of saving penalization, including penitentiary repression at all stages of its regulation (from the establishment of criminal law sanctions to full implementation in relation to a specific convict). The system of penitentiary criminology is revealed as an independent direction in the doctrine of punishment by deprivation of liberty, its subject and main parameters are determined. Certain aspects of the social, criminal-political, criminological and criminal-legal conditionality of the nature of differentiation and individualization of criminal penitentiary repression are considered. The content of punishment in the form of imprisonment is analyzed in terms of measuring the parameters of penitentiary criminology. On this basis, the content of the protective task of criminal law in the conditions of the development of the social state and modern society is clarified.

The article focuses on the constitutional changes in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, aimed at the protection of spiritual and moral values. It is concluded that in the current conditions there is a clear retreat in Western countries from the recognition of the absolute nature of personal (inalienable) rights, and, on the contrary, the adoption of legal measures to limit them and even to establish responsibility for those actions that do not fit into the formed mainstream, which is confirmed by the facts of discrimination on the basis of nationality, use of native language, restrictions on freedom of religion, freedom of movement, as well as property rights and others. The author consolidates with the position of those scholars who believe that values are the highest level of social regulation, the basis for the development of personality and maintenance of legal order in society. Attention is drawn to the similarity of the new constitutional norms of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in terms of strengthening traditional family values, the formation of respect for the feat of arms of the people during the Great Patriotic War, the need to honor the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland, to ensure the protection of historical truth and others. The analysis of amendments and additions to the constitutions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus convinces us of the desire of our states to preserve the basic constitutional values, to strengthen them, to provide for measures aimed at preventing emerging threats to the unity of society and the erosion of public consciousness.

The article deals with the definition of the judiciary and its authority as one of its descriptions as they are presented in procedural science. Attention is paid to the constitutional basis of the independence of judiciary. It is shown that authority of the judiciary is one of its independence guarantees. The difference between internal and external independence of judiciary as it has been treated in pre-revolutionary science is examined, as well as a definition of the authority of the judiciary as a sufficiency of its powers that make it possible to judiciary to control all the criminal procedure, the definition of the subsidiary bodies of judiciary and their role in provision of the authority of judiciary under the Judicial Reform of 1864. A conclusion is drawn that there are two aspects of the authority of the judiciary: judicial and procedural. Authority of the judiciary is also compared with the principle of equality of everyone under the law and in trial. The evolution of the definition of the authority of the judiciary in soviet science, when the separation of powers has been rejected and subsidiary bodies of judiciary has been separated from it, and in modern procedural science is exposed. Justice as a key power of the judiciary is compared with its other powers including those administered not by courts.

The article shows the social and philosophical-theoretical foundations of the idea of the rule of law. Based on world political and legal thought, the nature and evolution of this phenomenon is revealed. It is argued that in the presence of the institution of human rights, the mechanism of separation of powers and the predictability of the actions of state power, the rule of law can be assessed not only as an ideal, but also as a real way of organizing the state. It has been demonstrated that public order is a constant compromise between various forces in society, determined by the intensity of social interests. One of the ways to overcome political alienation is the subordination of the state to law, designed to ensure predictability of the actions of state power, guaranteeing a stable legal order. It is emphasized that the issue of the state being bound by law cannot be resolved within the framework of the theory of legal positivism and requires turning to meta-legal concepts (justice, good morals, common good) that lie outside positive law, and their basis and boundaries must be sought in philosophical and legal principles. Special attention is paid to the understanding of the social state — a state that establishes social (material) guarantees for broad layers of the population, fights poverty and introduces legal mechanisms for this purpose. It is shown that a legal social state is one of the central problems of Russian liberal philosophy of law. The rule of law, from the point of view of its representatives, must be supplemented by the “right to a decent existence”.

This article deals with the problems of the formation of the predecessor of the modern Donetsk People’s Republic — Donetsk province and traces its incorporation into the RSFSR, and then the transition to the Ukrainian SSR. April 26, 1920 should be recognized as the date of the entry of Donbass into the Russian Soviet Republic, when the RSFSR recognized the decision of the Soviet government on the allocation of the new province borders. Nowadays, archival data allow us to conclude that there is no legal transfer of the Donetsk province of the Ukrainian SSR. At the end of 1920, the territory of Donetsk province was politically recognized by the Bolsheviks as Soviet Ukraine, without observing the constitutional procedure for the region’s withdrawal from the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian SSR received its political recognition as a national republic — the Ukrainian people exercised their right to secede. Donbass emerged on the basis of self-determination of the workers of this region, who fought for independence and Soviet power. The author shows which variants of the borders of the Donetsk province were originally intended and on what principles the inclusion of individual territories in its composition was based.

The article examines the history of the formation of representative power in Russia: the emergence and development of Soviets of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies and the highest representative institution — the State Duma. The following shows the activities of the State Duma, the range of interests of their deputies, their attention to the problem of whether the Duma is a parliament or not. The process of formation of Soviets since February 1917 as an All-Russian representative authority is shown. The problem of correlation between the theory of Marxism and the practice of its application in the RSFSR is considered. It is shown that the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918 never mentioned the classical formula of Marxism “dictatorship of the proletariat”, blurring it with the dictatorship of workers. However, during the Civil War, in order to retain power, there is a transition to the de facto dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. The article draws attention to the moral and political level of the members of the CPSU (b), I. V. Stalin’s personnel policy in both party and Soviet organizations. The institute of purges of party and Soviet workers is considered as a way to get rid of both political opponents and embezzlers, thieves, drunkards, etc. of the public. The new Constitution of the USSR of 1936 was to fulfill the task of finally purging the state from the party dictatorship and ensuring the union of party members and non — party members.

The article reveals the negative consequences of a straightforward transfer of economic categories and approaches to civil law. In this case both the variety of legal forms of property relations and their historical ties to different legal systems (Continental civil law and Anglo-American common law) are neglected. Thus, the author criticizes the application of the ‘economic analysis of law’ concept, which is based on the economic approach to common law, for legal analysis of Continental legal concepts and ideas, which are alien to it. An observation is made that the scope of this concept is limited to business relations, as the development thereof has brought to life the trend of civil law economization. Conventional and economic nature of the concepts of ‘form of ownership’ and ‘intellectual property’, fallacy of legal definitions of ‘non-cash money’, ‘uncertificated securities’, and ‘digital property’, as well as confusion of economic and legal categories in the Anglo-American classification of property rights are emphasized. The article concludes that it is necessary to replace economic approaches to civil law with a legal analysis of economy, which makes it possible to legally define property relations and exclude unreasonable confusion of economic and legal concepts.

The article reveals various aspects of the influence of the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 on the development of national constitutional justice. Such development is ensured through the improvement of constitutional norms by the legislator and, in this regard, the significance of the Law of the Russian Federation on the amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation of March 14, 2020 No. 1-FKZ, the adoption of which led to a certain modification of the existing model of constitutional justice, is revealed. It is shown how the understanding of constitutional norms on the organization and activities of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has changed under the influence of amendments made to the Federal Constitutional Law “On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation” in 2009, 2010, 2014, 2016 and 2020. In addition, a significant role in the development of constitutional justice is played by the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation itself, which ensure the interpretation of constitutional norms in a certain socio-political context. Many of these positions were further constitutionally and legislatively fixed. The influence of the Constitution of the Russian Federation on the development of constitutional justice is revealed from several thematic perspectives: ensuring the autonomy and independence of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation as a body of state power; its composition, powers; the legal force of its decisions; regional constitutional justice. In conclusion, the author’s view of the problems under consideration is offered.

The Constitution of Russia, despite pessimistic forecasts during its adoption, caused, among other things, by the idea of the targeted, anti-crisis nature of this document, was a reliable basis for the formation of national consent, reconciliation of society, and became the most important guarantee of the preservation of Russian socio-cultural identity based on traditional spiritual and moral values. In modern socio-historical and geopolitical conditions, the consolidating role of the Russian Constitution and its potential associated with ensuring the sovereign development of Russian statehood is increasing. Designed to ensure state development in conditions of historical turbulence, the Russian Constitution enshrined flexible, self-adjusting mechanisms for balancing the interests of the individual, society and the state, based both on respect for the heritage and traditions of our ancestors, and on the desire for social progress. It is necessary to consistently reveal the normative, value-semantic content of the current Constitution of Russia, for which an essential prerequisite should be its demythologization in the sense of abandoning its distorted interpretations inspired by the currents of liberal-individualistic globalism. Some judgments on this matter, concerning, in particular, the ideological side of state development, the rights and freedoms of man and citizen in the system of constitutional values, spiritual, moral and legal education in the education system, are set out in the article with the expectation of further scientific dialogue and the formation of a new constitutional paradigms of Russian statehood.

The results of a study of the human rights practice of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the context of external challenges and threats are presented, the role of the institute of human rights as one of the integral elements of national sovereignty is considered. An attempt has been made by scientists and practitioners to study issues related to finding a balance between generally accepted standards and national characteristics in the protection of human rights, choosing tools to ensure effective monitoring of human rights and freedoms at the supranational level, and forming effective mechanisms by international organizations for human rights violations using the most optimal and constructive means. 

Guided by one of the main principles of human rights activity — mercy and humanism — outside politics, it seems necessary to study and comprehend existing conceptual approaches in the legal doctrine in the field of human rights protection and methodological tools of foreign colleagues-ombudsmen in order to test best practices and improve the effectiveness of human rights assistance. 

Taking into account modern realities caused by the systemic crisis of the international system for the protection of human rights and freedoms, the main directions of human rights activities, the main international and foreign human rights platforms for the development of cooperation are identified, new formats and promising areas of international cooperation in the field of human rights aimed at strengthening national sovereignty, respect for the principles of equality, independence and justice are highlighted.

At the same time, attention is drawn to negative trends associated with derogation of attention to the national system of constitutional law, deformation with the inclusion of Russia in the Bologna process of domestic philosophical and ideological principles of legal education, and the transition to a two-level system of training legal personnel (bachelor’s — master’s degrees). In this regard, specific directions for improving the teaching of constitutional law are proposed, taking into account the national characteristics of the philosophical and ideological foundations of domestic legal education, and the feasibility of transition to a constitutional model of training legal personnel is substantiated.

The author’s approach to the theory and practice of constitutionalism in the system of Russian legal education is presented. The very concept of constitutionalism is considered in this case on the basis of the unity of scientific, doctrinal, legal implementation and educational, methodological principles. This presupposes the need to substantiate new approaches both to the structure and content of the educational course on constitutional law, and to the organizational, legal, and methodological issues of its teaching. In this regard, the main guideline of the domestic legal education system should not be a narrow sectoral one (criminal security, corporate civil law, etc.), but a constitutional model of fundamental training of legal personnel. This presupposes the recognition of the ideas of constitutionalism as the basic principle of the system of teaching legal disciplines, bearing in mind the unity of legal theory and legal practice, lawmaking and law enforcement, considered on the integrative basis of legal positivism and the sociology of law, sociocultural, axiological characteristics of the legal existence of the individual, society and state. 

At the same time, attention is drawn to negative trends associated with derogation of attention to the national system of constitutional law, deformation with the inclusion of Russia in the Bologna process of domestic philosophical and ideological principles of legal education, and the transition to a two-level system of training legal personnel (bachelor’s — master’s degrees). In this regard, specific directions for improving the teaching of constitutional law are proposed, taking into account the national characteristics of the philosophical and ideological foundations of domestic legal education, and the feasibility of transition to a constitutional model of training legal personnel is substantiated.

The article examines the monograph by A. V. Kopylov “Legates, fideicommissas and donations in case of death in Roman classical law” (M., Gorodets, 2021). It is noted that a monograph on the stated topic is a natural stage of the author’s research work. The monograph first of all determines the place of these institutions in Roman civil law. At the same time, the connection between these institutions of inheritance law and the institutions of property law and, in general, their role in the circulation of things is shown. One of the main tasks that were solved through the use of legates and fideicommissas was the transfer of rights to things in order to protect the interests of family members (heirs under a will). The author points out the genetic connection between institutions. A. V. Kopylov examined the historically first forms of institutions (mainly legates and fideicommissae), as well as their features that developed by the classical era, and, as necessary, comparisons with the subsequent era take place. In the final section of the study, the author contains a brief historical outline of the development of the institutions discussed in the book. The review notes that the appendix to the main text contains an extensive list of author’s translations of fragments of the Corpus iuris civilis, the sixth book of the Justinian Code and Novellas, previously unknown to Russian readers. The main conclusions of the review can be reduced to the fact that the monograph by A. V. Kopylov is of great scientific importance and is of interest both to novelists, philologists, historians, and to a wide range of students and graduate students.

The article is a biographical study devoted to the scientific and public activities of a famous Russian lawyer Alfons Ernestovich Vorms (1868–1939). The article based on the materials of family and state archives as well as on published sources. The author has a task to open thoroughly the most important and interesting sides of A. E. Vorms’ life and activities. The main moments of his life path are shown in the article: from a talented student to a professor, who has a great authority in the scientific world of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. The author gives a characteristic to the most significant Vorms’ works and finds the features of his scientific views. A. E. Vorms is an author of many works on civil, peasant, trade and bills law. He also was doing a great teaching and enlightening work, and he was a successful lawyer. At Soviet period, he also worked as a consultant for some Soviet and foreign companies and state bodies. At the end of his life, Vorms was repressed, spent several years in correctional labor camps of Siberia and finally died at Butyrka prison hospital. He was rehabilitated posthumously. The long-term and productive Vorms’ activities are the notable contribution to the history of Russian jurisprudence.

Essence and structural organization of oath in legal aspect was studied. Oath as personal solemn confirmation by religious and non-religious act is considered, which was used as an element of jurisprudence in the past and is currently relevant. The structural organization of the oath is presented by analogy with the construction adopted in the normative legal theory. Modern using of oath highlights the relevance of topic. It is noted that structure of oath has practically not undergone significant changes from ancient until now. Oath breaking as basis of punishment is considered. Psychic and emotional side of oath is considered. As an illustration of the semantic content of oaths, excerpts from literary works of ancient Greek authors are given. Taking the oath according the topic imply legal aspect of activity by persons and authority. Publicity of the sworn-in ceremony is indicated. An original version of structuring of the oath is proposed. The sources of the research are original written documents, as well as translations with comments, fragments that have come down to us or intact petroglyphs located in archaeological parks or museums. The deductive, inductive, historical-linguistic, formal-legal methods along with description, analysis and synthesis, and non-stationary research were used.

The paper considers the interpretation of the problem of sovereign power proposed by John Austin. According to the jurist, political power is a neutral force, similar to the objective forces of nature and abstracted from social relations. The abstract idea of power, being the “soul” of political communication, has a conditionally independent existence. Its effect on the actual relations is possible only insofar as it turns out to be “reified” and “personified”. The power remains in a “dormant” state in the institutions of the state and its head (sovereign), who is responsible for the reproduction of the political and legal plane, legal and social order. The article analyzes the essence of political power in the concept of J. Austin, a number of features that could characterize, in his opinion, any sovereign power, and especially emphasizes the most vulnerable place in his teaching — the feature of the “determinateness” of the sovereign. In conclusion, the author summarizes that, firstly, in the theory of J. Austin it is unclear who exactly acts as the “true” bearer of the properties of sovereignty, secondly, if it is impossible to determine the “party of sovereignty”, or it is extremely difficult to determine it, then the theory under consideration that is trying to operate empirical facts should be considered as inconsistent with reality.

The problem of the legal nature of international jurisdiction agreements is directly related to the issue of their regulation in the national legislation, since, depending on the material or procedural qualifications of this institution, particular regulatory requirements for such agreements are to be established. This article analyzes various approaches to the definition of the legal nature and, consequently, the regulation of international jurisdiction agreements on the example of English, German and Russian legislation. The material qualification chosen in English law means a more flexible regulation of the agreements: the possibility to conclude an oral jurisdiction agreement as well as the possibility for one party to use remedies (anti-suit injunctions, damages) in case of violation of the jurisdiction agreement by the other party. The procedural qualification of jurisdiction agreements in German law presupposes the establishment of stricter formal requirements (requirements for the subjects of agreements, form (written or oral with written confirmation), time of the conclusion of the jurisdiction agreement). In Russian law, this issue has not been finally resolved and is debatable, so that the legislative regulation of agreements on jurisdiction is generally fragmentary and is replaced by the construction and interpretation of norms in judicial practice.

The function of law, or the legal function, is currently a category that is significant for the general theory of law, and for individual legal sciences. The category “function of law” refers in its importance to such important categories as legal relationship, legal norm, legal personality. They appear to have obvious specifics, but their study goes beyond a separate type of legal science, requires mandatory comparative research at the level of the general theory of law. At the same time, this, in turn, does not mean exactly following the provisions of general theoretical science, since the law of social security has its own scientific doctrine. Theoretical research in the field of social security should enrich not only branch science, but also general legal scientific disciplines. In addition, it is important that the study of any one key category cannot be carried out in isolation from others. It is impossible to study a legal relationship without taking into account the norms of law, it is impossible to study legal facts without conducting research on legal relations and legal norms. Therefore, the study of issues of legal personality should be studied together with the provisions on the norms of law, legal relations and other basic categories of law. In this sense, the study of the functions of law will also be impossible without referring to the main categories that determine the uniqueness of the branch of law. 

At this stage, one of the problems associated with the functions of law is the problem of the relationship between the concept of “function” and “essence”. Whether a function is a property that expresses the essence of a legal phenomenon, whether a legal phenomenon can have other properties than the essential one, whether a function should take into account these properties or should be limited to one, these questions are in demand both in the theory of law and in branch sciences. Despite the sufficient elaboration of theoretical questions about legal functions, the problems of the multifunctionality of legal phenomena and the correlation of the functions of law and the functions of the state are still relevant.

The theory of legitimate interests was created within the sociological school of law. Interests have been interpreted as an individual’s aspiration to meeting its own needs. The theory has been directed on researching individuals’ legitimate interests. The question of corporate interests has been not properly researched, the problem of a subject of a legitimate interest has been not the point of discussion in a legal theory. There is no unanimous point of view on corporate interests within a science of civil law. Two opposite points of view co-exists in the doctrine: interests of corporations are real (realistic theories); only interests of sharers are real (fiction theory). It is possible to recognize the existence of corporation’s legitimate interests with specific legal nature, derived from entrepreneurial activity of a corporation. Legitimate interests are used by courts in the resolution of tax disputes, for example, by applying the principle of ‘bona fide’ tax administration. By analysis, other legitimate interests of a legal entity are legitimate expectations and the ‘tax reconstruction’. The research on the topic of legitimate interests of corporations are perspective for the tax law.

Despite big number of Russian and foreign publications on the issues of responsibility in international air law and international law, in general, these issues continue to be important and require further research, especially, in view of present-day complexity of relations governed by international air law. Based on the analysis of the Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944, as well as dispute-settlement practice and documents of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) it is concluded that self-contained regime of State responsibility fully excluding rules of general international law on international responsibility will hardly develop in international air law in the foreseeable future. However, within the framework of international air law fully fledged lex specialis on international responsibility, allowing application of general rules on international responsibility to the extent not covered by such lex specialis, can develop. Lack of these lex specialis on international responsibility in international air law, will lead to unlimited application of general rules on international responsibility, including, in particular, rules on compensation for damages, and such application will result in claiming damages caused, for instance, by aviation accident, from a State in addition to rather big compensations received by aviation accident victims through private liability mechanisms actively used in aviation. Moreover, in view of lack of lex specialis on State responsibility in international air law regional and private mechanisms of State responsibility and compensation for damages will be more frequently used.

The article considers the basic theoretical provisions on the importance of the comparative legal method in scientific researches and in the practice of national criminal law-making. The article proves the admissibility and expediency of using the comparative legal method in the scientific substantiation of ways to improve the linguistic form of the Russian criminal law. It is specified that the possibilities of the comparative legal method in this area are limited, as each national law is written in the original national language, which has features of the lexical composition and grammatical structure, therefore, it is not the national systems of lexical and grammatical means themselves that are important for improving the linguistic form of the Russian criminal law, but rather positive experience with regard to general approaches to their use in the formulation of the content of criminal law prescriptions. Based on the analysis of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, a number of successful legislative decisions are identified in terms of giving precision and clarity to the language of criminal law, attention is focused on the pragmatic function of legislative definitions, revealing the meaning of terms used in criminal law and giving them strictly fixed normative content, which contributes to the formation of uniform law enforcement practice; and it is substantiated that the Kyrgyz experience in this area deserves the close attention of the Russian legislator.

The article examines the legal significance of environmental information in a digital society and examines its characteristics such as reliability. It is this quality of information about the state of the environment that is enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. It is noted that reliable information about the state of the environment is information that is at the same time genuine (objective, undistorted, accurate), and sufficient (not excessive, but not fragmentary and not selective), and relevant (timely), unbiasedly collected and analyzed by a competent subject. The definition of the term “information on the state of the environment (environmental information)” included in the Federal Law “On Environmental Protection” in 2021 is also analyzed. It is concluded that the legal definition of the term in question does not allow distinguishing environmental information from all other information. The right to environmental information is analyzed in relation to the modern system of information support for state environmental management. The necessity of establishing a regime of transparency of information on the state of the environment is substantiated. It is proposed to develop and implement an information mechanism in the field of environmental protection — a system of information measures of influence (interrelated legal means that mediate the processes of collection, accumulation, analysis, storage, provision and use of reliable environmental information) on people’s behavior in order to ensure environmental protection, rational use of natural resources, environmental safety of humans and other objects.

Using the example of individual decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the peculiarities of the execution of Court decisions in the field of local self-government are shown. Special attention is paid to those who monitor law enforcement practices and supervise the implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, examples are given that information on the execution of individual decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation appears in the annual Reports on the state of local self-government prepared by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Despite the fact that cases related to local self-government are not in the priority of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, it is during the consideration of this category of cases and the subsequent execution of decisions that new legal structures are formed, which have received some coverage in this article. Thus, Resolution No. 30-P of December 1, 2015, issued on the basis of an analysis of the legislation of a particular subject of the Russian Federation, was extrapolated to all subjects of the Russian Federation; a different arsenal of means was used to bring the legislation of the subjects of the Russian Federation in line with the positions formulated by the Court; the results of monitoring the execution of the Court decision were public. The operative part of the Court’s decisions began to formulate obligations addressed not only to the legislator, but also to local governments (to regulate relevant public relations), as well as to courts and supervisory authorities, what to pay attention to when considering a specific category of cases (Resolution No. 27-P of May 30, 2023). The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation began to independently adjust the mechanism of execution of its own decisions.

This article is devoted to the problems of interpretation and understanding of the concept of insolvency (bankruptcy) in the sources of law that regulated the bankrupt institution at various state-legal stages of the history of Russia. In order to study the described problems, the author explores both the sources of law of different periods of history, and various works of honored lawyers and jurists. The author also touches upon the doctrinal approach to the problems of the concept of “bankruptcy”, in connection with which special attention is paid to the fundamental works of pre-revolutionary thinkers such as G. F. Shershenevich, I. A. Pokrovsky and N. E. Tornau. In the article, on the basis of comparative legal analysis, the genesis of the concept of bankruptcy is revealed. The understanding of the essence of bankruptcy is revealed depending on the period of development of Russian law. The patterns and features of succession between the “bankrupt” legislation of Russia of different periods are analyzed. The approaches of various legal scholars to the understanding of the term “bankruptcy” in legal documents of various epochs of the state-legal development of Russia are described. The article draws a conclusion about the significant influence of the problem of “concepts in a bankrupt institution” on the development of all theoretical and historical knowledge in the field of insolvency (bankruptcy). This conclusion is revealed by the example of the historical and continuity connection between the normative acts of the historical periods of the state-legal development of Russia, which are far from each other.

The article aims at the assessment of legal regulation of pledge in the Boards of Social Welfare of the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century. The boards established by Catherine II worked as provincial banks accredited to meet the needs of the inhabitants of the governorates. The study focuses on the activity of the boards, which reflects the details of the economic development of the governorates, including those in the territories of Georgia and Azerbaijan integrated into the Empire in the first third of the 19th century. The author draws on extensive legal material and archival documents illustrating the reasons for the adoption of exemptions from general pledge regulations in relation to some of the boards. The specifics of the economic development of the territories, in a number of cases, empowered the legislator to expand the list of legalized pledge for certain governorates. The main subjects among the borrowers in the boards were nobles and merchants. Insufficient landownership of the nobility in a number of governorates led to the guarantee as one of the possible conditions for obtaining a loan in the boards. Due to the identified corrupt practices of the officials for obtaining loans in the boards, state workers were identified as special subjects of law, in respect of which special legal provisions were introduced in the boards.

Based on various sources, the author of this article explores the process of the emergence of the institution of indeterminate sentences in Soviet legislation. Its American and European roots are revealed, reflected in the legislation of individual countries, discussions on the issue of indeterminate sentences at international conferences and congresses. Also considered is the scientific position of pre-revolutionary Russian scientists in relation to indeterminate sentences. Some of pre-revolutionary scientists were in the public service, first during the Provisional Government, and then in the early Soviet period. In this regard, the author explores the specifics of the personnel of the Central Punitive Department of the People’s Commissariat of Justice in the initial period of its activity. It has been established that a number of prominent pre-revolutionary criminologists could influence the content of Soviet legislation in terms of introducing elements of indeterminate sentences. In this regard, the first normative acts of the Soviet state of the criminal law and correctional labor industries (1918–1921) are analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that during the period of the formation of the Soviet state in Russia, important prerequisites were formed for fixing the institution of indeterminate sentences in the legislation. The article may be of interest both for historians of law and for specialists in the field of criminal and penitentiary law.

The review gives the main theses on the history of political and legal doctrines. It is mainly noted that this discipline is one of the oldest in classical legal education. Against the backdrop of widespread cuts in hours for fundamental legal disciplines, it is necessary to firmly defend our positions in the educational process of the theory of state and law and the history of political and legal doctrines.

The article is dedicated to the memory of an outstanding employee of higher education — Doctor of Laws, Professor Oleg Igorevich Krassov, who made an invaluable contribution to the development and upholding of the independent nature of the branch of land law and legislation. O. I. Krassov substantiated the independence of land law especially through the analysis and development of the concepts of “legal regime” of lands, land plots and other objects, as well as through the concept of “land plot”. Referring to the works of O. I. Krassov, in the current article his point of view is provided on the content of these concepts, determined by the norms of land, water, forestry, urban planning, natural resources (ecological), mining, and civil legislation. Oleg Igorevich is the founder of the studies of comparative land law. He has prepared monographs on land rights in Europe, common law countries, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Taking this into account, and as an additional substantiation to his opinion on the independent nature of the branch of land law and legislation, O. I. Krassov referred to world’s experience in the development of land law and rights to land and land plots in different countries. As a result, he advocated a unified legal regime for land plots. In his opinion, the legal regime of land plots is established not so much and not only by the norms of civil law and legislation, but by special rules established in land law, the Land Code, and land legislation.

Serafim Vladimirovich Yushkov is the founder of the history of the Russian state and law, who formulated its subject, developed the periodization and methodology of the corresponding course. At the same time, the contribution of the scientist to the development of certain important issues of the history of state and law in the assessments of his contemporaries has not been fully investigated in modern literature. The archives have preserved little-researched transcripts of meetings at which the works of S. V. Yushkov were discussed and debated. The study of this heritage, which reflects the controversial theoretical issues of that time, activates interest in the study of S. V. Yushkov’s contribution to historical and legal science, encourages the study of not only of the origins of Soviet historical science, but also of public discussions, as well as the positions expressed on them by scientists who worked side by side with him, on whose his creative search was carried out in front of his eyes. On the basis of archival sources not previously involved in scientific circulation, the article reveals the features and directions of scientific discussions related to the research of S. V. Yushkov, his contribution to the study of specific historical and legal issues. In the course of the research, retrospective analysis, concrete historical and comparative historical methods were used. It is concluded that the individual weaknesses of S. V. Yushkov’s concept revealed at the meetings in the process of criticism later turned out to be its strong point, and the scientific community recognized the outstanding merits of S. V. Yushkov in creating the foundations of the history of the national state and law.

The article describes what primary employment is, according to the labour law system of Russian Federation. It reveals that there is no definition of such concept and tries to derive it through the legal history. A work-book was the unique and remains one of the main characteristics of the primary employment, so the paper discusses, is it possible to combine legally two or more primary employers having more work-books. The judicial opinion is analysed and there are shown different approaches that result from the lack of legal definition of primary employment in the Labour Code of Russian Federation. The author’s approach based on the law branch principle of combining state and contractual regulation of labor relations and on the primacy of the labour contract proves that one could have more primary employments. The type of employment is one of the terms of labour contract. Multiple primary employment is not prohibited, so the author concludes, that such employment is legal, but the main point is not regulated because of the lack of legal definition what primary employment is. This causes ill effects for the worker, because he’s not protected as well. Therefore a primary employment is without specifying that it is off-time job.

The aim of this study was to clarify the concept of “legitimacy” used in theory of state and law, as the term often leads to confusion due to the plurality of its meanings in different contexts. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that the usage of legitimacy can be still be primarily categorized into two directions: legal legitimacy and moral legitimacy. Legal legitimacy represents the normative side of the concept and seeks to establish a hierarchy of legal orders, with the juspositivists like Kelsen and Hart advocating for grundnorm and rule of recognition and jusnaturalists like Aquinas and Sir Blackstone defending the supremacy of the natural law. Moral legitimacy discusses the sources contributing to the “right to rule” from the perspectives of consensus that derive from Aristotle’s advocacy for political stability and Rousseau’s social contract, and perspective of conflict that roots in Maciavelli’s distrust of human nature and Marx’s class struggle. By contrasting the theories of a variety of legal and political philosophers, this paper produced an overview of the evolution of legitimacy, which allows the readers to form a cohesive understanding of the concept and its usage.

The subject of this study is the normative legal acts of the subjects of the Russian Federation regulating additional guarantees of the implementation of the constitutional right of citizens to appeal in the subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities, as well as the problems of establishing additional guarantees by regional legislators. The value of the study lies in identifying regulatory gaps at the federal level, contradictions of some regional norms to federal legislation, as well as their features. The author formulated specific proposals for the prospective improvement of legislation on citizens’ appeals, established the limits of regional laws and their place in the mechanism of realization of the right of citizens to appeal.

The reasons are indicated and the expediency of increasing the terms of consideration of appeals in a foreign language or in dot-relief font of the blind is justified, the declarative and abstract nature of a number of regulations, defects of rulemaking in the acts of the subjects of the Russian Federation are noted. Regional legislators, when proclaiming additional guarantees, should avoid arbitrary changes to the current system of norms, strive for reasonable stability of legal regulation, regulate and unify such guarantees more clearly. The necessity of attributing a number of regulatory norms to the competence of the federal legislator, including for the purpose of their unified application in all subjects of the Russian Federation, is noted.

The modern concept of regulation of state control (supervision), municipal control assumes its coordination with the legislation on administrative responsibility to ensure the orderly application of state coercion. At the same time, the basic prerequisites for adjusting the grounds for bringing to administrative responsibility are currently set precisely by the legislation on control (supervision), which is focused on preventing and suppressing violations of mandatory requirements, and not on punishing them. The measures taken to achieve this goal indicate that at the regulatory level in Russia, a model of subordination of proceedings on administrative offences in relation to control and supervisory proceedings is being formed by limiting the grounds for initiating cases of administrative offenses, expressed in non-compliance with mandatory requirements. Within the framework of this model, the legislator introduces special restrictions to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation regarding the initiation of cases of administrative offences related to non-compliance with mandatory requirements, which are aimed at reducing the administrative burden on economic activity. However, in practice, the relevant legal regulations are applied restrictively and not to the full extent, which makes it difficult to implement the model of administrative-law measures enshrined in the legislation, by virtue of which bringing to administrative responsibility should follow the conduct of control (supervision), not ahead of them.

A distinct characteristic of the judicial activity of integration courts is that it is aimed not only at resolving legal conflicts, but also at interpreting the law in order to fill the existing gaps. Filling legal gaps may be described as a key function of an integration court. This special characteristic leads to the phenomenon of judicial activism. The study of the case law of integration courts reveals the possibility to formulate activist legal findings using different methods of interpretation. The possibility to use the teleological method of interpretation, which is the most suitable in order to eliminate legal gaps, stems directly from the provisions of the Vienna convention on the law of international treaties. The analysis of the acts of the Court of Justice of the European Union allows to establish a strong correlation between activist approaches and the use of the teleological method of interpretation. However teleological interpretation does not necessarily mean the choice of the most progressive available options. Often the activism manifests itself in the search of a balance between the interests of the integration organization and its Member States. The Court of the Eurasian Economic Union develops activist approaches by using both traditional methods of interpretation and teleological interpretation as well as having recourse to constitutional traditions of the Member States.

This is a translation of an article by the German scholar Erich Berndt “Investigating Judge or Prosecutor?” published in 1931. The then version of the German Code of Criminal Procedure provided for two forms (or two stages) of pre-trial investigation: inquiry (“Ermittlung”) and preliminary investigation (“Untersuchung”). The prosecutor was in charge of the inquiry, while the preliminary investigation was in the hands of an investigating judge (a figure similar to the Russian judicial investigator). Such a pre-trial structure was characteristic of most continental legal systems at that time, but many jurists were critical of it. In Germany, the debate on this topic peaked in the 1920s. By the early 1930s, the opinion that the prosecutor’s inquiry should be the only form of investigation had become predominant. In light of this, E. Berndt’s article is interesting because it does not just express the author’s view of the problem, but summarizes the main arguments pro et contra. Today Germany is considered to be a textbook example of a country that refused a judicial preliminary investigation in favor of a prosecutor’s inquiry. At the same time, the experience of the German reform serves as an important reference point for many legal systems. Since the domestic legislator is also in search of an optimal model of pre-trial investigation, familiarity with the German discussion about this may be extremely useful for the Russian reader.

Historically, English criminal procedure is characterised by the role of private prosecution, which allowed each person to bring charges against any other person. A relic of the Middle Ages, it has nevertheless survived successfully to the present day, although it has undergone a number of significant transformations. Its remarkable resilience, despite its inability to serve as a full-fledged instrument of Crown criminal policy, is due to the fact that the ancient procedural form is constantly emerging with new uses. In the twentieth century there was a growing demand for it by commercial and non-commercial organizations who needed an instrument for the proactive prosecution (in public or private interests). Continental critics, who had earlier protested against the introduction of the English model of private prosecution into the criminal procedure of Germany or France, raised many objections against it, but the English history has shown that their fears were baseless. At the same time, the development of public prosecutions in England has greatly reduced the space for private initiative. Most of the procedural advances, among them the increased accessibility of criminal justice, were due to the expansion of the state.

Hybrid mismatch arrangements are means of structuring cross–border transactions which result into double taxation or double non-taxation due to differences in the legal qualification of the taxpayer’s status or the legal qualification of the type of income. Hybrid mismatches arise due to imperfection of legislative techniques and are often accidental, but in some cases hybrid mismatch arrangements act as a way of committing tax offenses, leading to base erosion and profit shifting. The key provisions against the intentional use of hybrid mechanisms aimed at tax avoidance are being specified at the level of national legislations. One of the problems arising out of such norms’ adoption is concluded in providing them with compliance to tax certainty principle, which acts as a guarantee of tax legislation application in accordance with the content of public interest laid down into them, and as the means of protecting the taxpayers’ reasonable expectations at the stage of law enforcement. This article analyzes the existing anti-hybrid mismatch provisions of the certain foreign tax legislations (on the examples of the United States of America, of the United Kingdom and of the members of the European Union) for their compliance with the tax certainty principle.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the key characteristics of preemptive terms in civil law, civil, arbitration proceedings, as well as in tax law. The definition of preventive terms, as well as their legal features, are not enshrined in legislation. However, acts of the Federal Tax Service, judicial practice, civil and financial and legal doctrines recognize them as a specific type of terms for exercising both civil rights and the rights of participants in tax legal relations. The admissibility of the reception of the civilistic approach to the substantiation of the essence of the pre-trial period in the tax process is substantiated. The author critically assesses the current judicial practice to justify the violation by the tax authorities of the deadlines for the exercise of power. It proves the presence of preventive deadlines in the tax process and the need for their strict observance by law enforcers. On the basis of doctrinal teachings and analysis of law enforcement acts, the main features of preclusive deadlines in the tax process and the goals of their legislative fixation have been developed. It has been revealed that it is advisable to establish the criteria for classifying a term as a preventive term from the analysis of the norms of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, which imperatively regulate the consequences of violating the terms. Such consequences lead to the termination of the right of the tax authority to exercise its powers and to carry out the relevant legally enshrined procedural actions. The necessity of further study of the institute of terms in the tax process is substantiated. The task of the science of tax law, and subsequently the legislator, is argued, to develop and fix the legal regime of preventive deadlines in the tax process.

Due to current major changes of the geopolitical climate studying of international practices of providing financial environment, which differs from ordinary financial products of banks and non-banking financial organizations, is becoming increasingly important. There is a need to focus special attention to the financing based on etic standards of doing business, which are common for most countries of Middle East region. The exploration of one or another etic standards as well as its reflection in the domestic legal systems of such countries allows extending the legal boarders in order to create a strong fundamental basis for cooperation between the state and the society, as well as between the legal parties, keeping consistent the essential nature of the civil law. The analysis of the main characteristics of transactional models, which are consistent with the etic principles, is advisable to make on the basis of the transactions common for the countries of the Islamic region. This article shows the main distinctive feature of the legal and religious rules, as well as it shows the main idea of the Islamic law. This article also shows the legal environments for the implementation of the legal norms consistent with ethical standards into the legislation of the Russian Federation.

The article analyzes the role of legal science and education in the formation of the legal culture of the population, taking into account the tasks set by the Foundations of the state cultural policy. It is concluded that jurisprudence plays an important role in the formation of a high level of legal consciousness of the population and its national identity. Intensive legal education and the possibility of obtaining legal knowledge by a wide range of people will help to create a positive image of the state (including in works of art) and strengthen civil self-identity. The destructive activity of “unfriendly countries” can be overcome by strengthening traditional values, which form the basis of the constitutional system of Russia and are embodied in various legal institutions. The developed legal culture of the population will help to avoid socio-psychological dependence on external influence, will become the basis of unity and cohesion of Russian society, the unification of the multinational people of the Russian Federation. The authors of the article propose to popularize legal science and law enforcement practice, to promote youth movements in the field of patriotic education and legal education, to develop the system of legal education by organizing lectures, seminars, round tables, conferences in order to strengthen the spirit of unity, cohesion, friendship of peoples, as well as traditional values in society.

In this article, the author examines the historical heritage of the works of Sergei Mikhailovich Korneev, including the development of the topic of bankruptcy of citizens that he began in the cathedral textbook. The historical path of development of the legislation on bankruptcy of citizens in modern Russia is given: from the Federal Law of 08.01.1998 N 6-FZ “On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)” to the Federal Law of the same name of 10.26.2002 N 127-FZ and, finally, the Federal Law of 06.29.2015 N 154-FZ, which actually introduced the institution of bankruptcy of citizens and the Law on extrajudicial bankruptcy of citizens (Federal Law of July 31, 2020 No. 289-FZ). The difference between consumer and commercial bankruptcy is given; reveals the features of the implementation of constitutional principles in the process of insolvency (bankruptcy) of citizens. As part of the consideration of the principle of the social state, the problem of excluding the subsistence minimum for a dependent child from the bankruptcy estate and the problem of selling the only housing of the debtor are considered. A characteristic is given of the formed judicial practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the issue of limiting the executive immunity of the only housing, as well as the practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, which established the principles for the provision of replacement housing.

Economic categories in civil and business law are quite common. However, over the years, disputes have not subsided about whether these categories should be present in law, how these categories should be reflected in the rules of law, whether they should fully reflect the economic essence of these categories, and most importantly, whether economic categories serve as the basis for making legal decisions. The article brought to the attention of readers reflects the position of the largest scientists in the field of civil law and business law on the issues under consideration: Doctor of Law, Professor Korneev S. M., Doctor of Law, Professor Gribanov V. P., Doctor of Law, Professor Bykov A. G., Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Laptev V. V. and other famous lawyers. Such economic categories as fixed and circulating assets, fixed and circulating assets, depreciation deductions, cost accounting, state property as an economic and legal category, enterprise, economic mechanism and others are considered. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between economics and law, the impact of economics on law and law on the economy. Attention is drawn to the close relationship between economics and law with the social factors of modern society.

The scientific article provides a historical analysis of the doctrinal approach to the legal characterization of the right of operational management. Particular attention is paid to the scientific works of Professor S. M. Korneev and his position on the right of operational management as a subjective real right. The position of Professor S. M. Korneev is presented. on the distinction between the right of ownership and the right of operational management, which became the basis for the author’s conclusion that the subject of the right of operational management manages the property of the owner for the purposes that the owner sets for the first. The article touches upon the question of the possibility of transferring the powers of the owner to the subject of the right of operational management, the answer to which was given at one time by Professor Korneev S. M., who believed that the owner, transferring this or that power, does not transfer it completely. The author also examines the current problems of applying the norms of the civil legislation of the Russian Federation on the right of operational management, which in most cases take place in relation to private institutions. The question is raised about the subsidiary liability of the founder of the institution for the debts of the latter. It is concluded that it is necessary to revise the main features of the right of operational management in the new economic conditions, which are different from those that took place in the Soviet period of Russia’s development.

The article is dedicated to the memory of MSU Professor Sergei Mikhailovich Korneev in connection with the 100th anniversary of his birth. Grateful memory allows the author to turn over the pages of his life history, emphasizing the huge contribution to the training of students working at universities in various parts of our country today. With the versatility of scientific interests and the presence of numerous works, S. M. Korneev, according to the author, had a special attitude to the doctrine of state property law created by him. Having singled out the fundamental characteristics of state property law as an economic phenomenon from the works of Professor Korneev, the author made an attempt to search for their development in the works of modern foreign civilists. And this attempt was crowned with success, because on the pages of the publication it was possible to prove that the professor’s ideas, even if not in an absolute form, are making their way, demonstrating the development in the research of modern foreign authors.

The article analyzes the concept of gross negligence in the occurrence of an insured event and its legal significance for liability insurance. The broad interpretation of gross negligence in judicial practice leads to an increase in the number of cases of refusal to pay insurance compensation. For this reason, customs representatives and other professional participants in the turnover cannot use insurance protection in situations for which such protection is provided. Using the examples of judicial practice, the author substantiates the need to analyze all elements of the insured event as a whole, and not only the behavior of the party preceding this case, when determining gross negligence. In addition, in the article the author touches upon the currently relevant issue of the admissibility of providing in the contract the possibility of releasing the insurer from the payment of compensation. The author comes to the conclusion that the rules regarding gross negligence in the occurrence of an insured event should be considered imperative, because this form of guilt does not exclude the randomness characteristic of insurance relations. According to the author, the rules of Article 959 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation allow to protect the interests of the insurer in connection with the increased risk of an insured event due to gross negligence.

The article examines the key legal problems in connection with the formation and operation of endowment funds (endowment funds). The author takes as a basis two main theses related to the scientific heritage and personality of Professor of Moscow University Sergey Mikhailovich Korneev — the real nature of the right of operational management and the ethical significance of legal activity. The discussion in the scientific literature about the legal regime of the endowment fund property, as well as the purposes of spending the funds of these organizations, paid services of non-profit organizations has not subsided for several years. The author makes an attempt to talk about possible ways to resolve these debatable issues, based on the provisions of the current legislation. The subject of the author’s attention is endowment funds as a venture investment tool. Two ways of forming endowment funds are considered in detail — within the framework of an existing non-profit organization and by creating a specialized non-profit organization — a fund. Separately, the issue of restrictions that are introduced by the legislator for this type of non-profit organizations is considered. As an illustrative example, the article analyzes endowment funds operating in the educational sector.

The article is devoted to determining the place of consumer law in the system of Russian law and in the system of Russian legislation. Having formed in Russian civil law initially as a functional institution of civil law protection of consumer rights, it later, together with the norms of branches of public law, forms an intersectoral institute of Russian law, and under the influence of codified civil legislation, especially due to the reform of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, as well as the improvement of legislation on consumer protection and the practice of its application, occupies the place of a functional sub-branch in the structure of modern civil law. For more than thirty years, consumer law has also been formed as a complex branch of legislation, including normative acts containing norms of various branches of Russian law. Consumer law (consumer protection legislation) is characterized by a number of features (it includes numerous regulations of various hierarchical levels and combines legal regulation contained in codified civil legislation and special acts on consumer protection). This, on the one hand, seems to be a very progressive phenomenon, since the civil law regulation of contractual relations with the participation of consumers is elevated to the level of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, and, on the other hand, this is done in part two of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, as well as in certain federal laws, is often inconsistent or insufficiently successful.

The article is devoted to the development of approaches to the legal qualification of the consent to harm in German doctrine and case law. The author explores the problems of the transactional theory of consent, based on the provisions of the German Civil Code and dogmatically formulated in the work of E. Zitelmann. The article describes the early case law of the German high courts on the consent to harm. The author generalizes critique of the transactional theory of consent in the doctrine and describes a departure from it in the case law of the mid‑20th century in Germany. The author dwells in detail on various non-transactional approaches to the qualification of consent presented in the works of K. Larentz, E. Schenke, O. Bucher and W. Münzberg. The article describes a modern approach to consent based on the teleological reduction of some rules on transactions. The author comes to the conclusion that the development of doctrinal views on consent to harm in Germany proceeded dialectically: from the transactional qualification of consent through non-transactional approaches to the limited application of certain rules on transactions. The author suggests to qualify consent to harm as a transaction with some reservations.

The article raises the issue of the relationship between contributory negligence and recourse between multiple tortfeasors. While using historical and comparative examples, the author concludes that it may be possible to jointly consider these concepts. The Roman law knew neither contributory negligence nor right of recourse which would allow for loss apportionment, and that is associated with punitive features of Roman actions in tort. In Germany, both concepts became widespread no earlier than after the civil law codification, and further case law applied rules on contributory negligence to recourse. In English law, contributory negligence as a partial defence and right of recourse appeared only in the course of the legislative reforms of the 20th century. Considering justifications for the similarity of these concepts offered in the doctrine, the author prefers the view that both imply several parties being outcome responsible for the loss. Upon the analysis of imputing acts of third persons as contributory negligence, it is shown that contributory negligence and right of recourse can be used interchangeably in certain contexts. The observed similarity of the two relation types, if true, by virtue of the equal treatment principle, requires that the same scale be applied to them, and implies admissibility of a parallel study.

The article analyzes the doctrinal foundations of technological connection as an institution of energy legislation, as well as its main features and problems of law enforcement. At the same time, the multidimensional nature of this institution is emphasized, in particular, including technological, economic and legal aspects. The expediency of legislative consolidation of the right of access to energy infrastructure for consumers of energy and energy resources, which must be distinguished from factual (technological) actions aimed at its implementation, is shown. The possible cases of denial of access to technological infrastructure and their consequences are analyzed, the need for regulation of such consequences for network and resource transportation organizations is shown. From the doctrinal and law enforcement positions, the question of the legal nature of the technological connection agreement is investigated, while the impossibility of its legal qualification as a sui generis contract is shown. The legal qualification of the contract for technological connection is related to the issue of the customer’s right to unilaterally refuse to execute the contract for technological connection, which is an important element of its legal status. When studying the issue of alienation of the right to the connected capacity, it is concluded that its alienation is permissible, provided that mechanisms are created to prevent abuse of the right in this area.

The article examines the problems of the legal construction of state unitary enterprises and evaluates the contribution of Professor S. M. Korneev to its justification. The article reveals the history of the formation and the essence of the construction of a state enterprise based on the right of operational management (economic management) in domestic civil law. The disadvantages of this design are noted, consisting in the splitting of property rights for the same property between two entities (the state and the enterprise). The role of S. M. Korneev in substantiating the construction of the law of operational management is shown. The dual nature of the powers of the state in relation to the state-owned enterprises created by it is revealed, consisting not only of the property rights of the owner in relation to the property assigned to the enterprise, but also of organizational and managerial powers in relation to the enterprise itself as a legal entity. The reasons for the gradual abandonment of the construction of a state unitary enterprise based on the right of economic management in the present period are analyzed, among which are the loss of the importance of state ownership as the basis of economic relations, the shortcomings of the construction of the right of economic management itself, which is essentially a variation of “split property”, the need to develop competition. At the same time, the main reason for the “dying out” of the design of unitary enterprises is its replacement by the modern theory of corporate management relations that arise between the founder-owner and the unitary legal entity created by him (state enterprise). The conclusion is made about the meaninglessness of the powers of the state as the owner of the property of a state enterprise and about the performance of the corresponding functions by the “managerial” corporate powers of the state as the sole founder of a state legal entity.

The article analyzes the scientific heritage of Professor S. M. Korneev, dedicated to the privatization of the housing stock in the Russian Federation. The continuity of the ideas of the scientist in the current doctrine of law and the consolidation of individual proposals in modern Russian legislation are shown. It is noted that S. M. Korneev was one of the first in Russian law who addressed the topical legal problems of housing stock privatization and suggested ways to resolve them. In particular, he studied the issues of protecting the rights of family members of the owner during privatization, including formulating proposals on the need to improve legislation on the participation in privatization of minors and incapacitated family members; they show how the principle of “free” and “one-off” housing privatization should work in law enforcement practice; proposals were formulated for the formalization of the legal regime of the common property of an apartment building during the privatization of residential premises in it; the problem of the legal regime of a land plot under an apartment building is raised and proposals are made for organizing the maintenance of the infrastructure of such a house through the creation of special legal entities — condominiums. This article shows that the comprehension and resolution of many of the scientific and practical problems of protecting the right of ownership to residential premises identified by S. M. Korneev, which arose even at the stage of privatization, took place in the last decades of the development of domestic legislation. It is concluded that. that individual problems of privatization remain topical even at the present stage.

Not only Russian, but also foreign modern legal science bypasses the issue of the legal nature of the state’s right to expropriate private property. Its limits and limitations are unclear, as are the guarantees of the right to private property. In most cases, the right to expropriate is perceived as a given and the prerogative of the state. However, it is quite obvious that the principle of the certainty of law presupposes the normative clarity of the regimes and types of expropriation, the conditions for its implementation in relation to other restrictions and methods for the forced termination of the right to private property. In conditions of high turbulence in international relations, the question of the correlation between the norms of international, private international and national (domestic) law in determining the mechanism and legal regime of expropriation is especially relevant. Discussions on the relationship between the legal mechanisms of expropriation and nationalization, on the definition of criteria and the very legal nature of the compensation due to a private owner during expropriation do not leave the agenda. Particularly acute is the question of the grounds and forms of international responsibility of states exercising the right to expropriation, both in violation of the general norms and principles of international law, and special in relation to expropriation in relation to the interests and rights of private owners. The attention of the author is focused on this issue in connection with the emerging negative trends in the development of lawmaking in this area, not only at the national, but also at the international level

The article discusses the evolution of views on the problem of compensation for moral harm in Russian and foreign Civil doctrine. The author analyzes the features of the position on the issue of compensation for moral harm, expressed by Professor S.M. Korneev, as well as the approaches of modern law enforcement practice in cases of compensation for moral harm. The article shows the origin of the problem of compensation for moral harm in Roman law on the example of the so-called claims for insult. The possibility of compensation for moral harm in the Middle Ages was practically denied, largely due to the prevailing doctrine of restitution. Subsequently, the legislation on compensation for non-pecuniary damage was most developed in England. Ample opportunities to compensate for non-property damage to the victim began to be provided in France and Italy. In more conservative countries — Germany and Austria, as a result, they also recognized the legality of compensation for non-pecuniary damage. In Russia, it was initially possible to observe the beginnings of this institution, in the USSR they were gone. Compensation for moral harm became possible only during the period of “perestroika”. The current Russian legislation not only recognizes compensation for non-property dam age, but also provides for a wide frameworks for its application.

The article highlights the pedagogical and educational-methodical work of professor S.M. Korneev, including his work on the systematics of the civil law course. On this basis, the main goals and objectives of university (higher) legal education in the field of civil law are revealed. With reference to the works of the classics of Russian civil law I.A. Pokrovsky, L. I. Petrazhitsky and others, devoted to the issues of methods of teaching civil law, the necessity of studying in law schools not only and not so much the content of the current legislation and the judicial practice of its application (i. e. jurisprudence), as the conceptual foundations of civil science (i. e. jurisprudence) is substantiated on this basis, students develop the skills of legal thinking, based on their understanding of the essence and principles of civil (private) law, the moral side of civil law regulation and its focus on achieving social justice. From these positions, attempts are criticized to fundamentally reorient the university training of lawyers from a general theoretical to a “practice-oriented” model that does not take into account the constant changes in modern legislation, as well as the various shortcomings and errors in both its content and the judicial practice of its application

On March 26, 2023, a member of the editorial board of the journal "Bulletin of Moscow University. Episode 11. Law", famous international lawyer, scientist and practitioner Vladimir Vladimirovich Golitsyn.

This message is devoted to the memory of the respected professor of the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law August Alekseevich Mishin, his approaches to the study of law. These approaches helped students and colleagues to find key factors in assessing trends in the development of constitutionalism in foreign countries, to find shortcomings and assess the merits. On this basis, a message was made and a legal analysis of the approaches and decisions of the Supreme Court of the state was carried out. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin and the Supreme Court of United States in the case of Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission on changing the map of electoral districts due to the fact that the executive branch presented by the governor from the Democratic Party and the representatives of the state legislature dominated by Republicans could not agree on this issue. Based on the results of the analysis, it is concluded that there are no clear standards for the American courts to conduct a comprehensive analysis of all circumstances due to the pressure exerted by those who form the American doctrine of constitutionalism. Thanks to the scientific report, it is possible to take a closer look at the process of involving the courts in political activities, the place of the court in the system of separation of powers and the conditions for the interaction of the court with other branches of power from the point of view of constitutional law.

The article attempts to study the development and current state of the institute of parliamentarism of Kazakhstan in the context of the constitutional reforms carried out. The main historical stages of its development from 1991 to 1995 are analyzed. The essence of the concept of parliamentarism in the narrow and broad senses of the word is considered, and several groups of scientists with different points of view on the position of parliamentarism are also identified in the course of the study. The constitutional foundations of the Kazakh institute of parliamentarism are revealed. The various reasons for the adoption of the new Basic Law in 1995, as well as the shortcomings of the previous Constitution, which led to a protracted parliamentary crisis, are analyzed. The paper defines the 5 stages of the development of independent Kazakh parliamentarism. The article describes in detail the 3 main constitutional reforms carried out in the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2007, 2017 and 2022, in terms of their impact on the process of improving the institution of parliamentarism. In the process of researching these reforms, the new functions and powers of the parliament to strengthen control over the government of the country are considered. The constitutional novel in the history of Kazakhstan, which establishes the limitation of the terms of office of the President of the Republic from two 5-year to one 7-year term, which undoubtedly affects the parliament, increasing its responsibility for the fate of the country, is analyzed, international experience is studied, according to which it is concluded that in such a developed country as the Republic of Korea such a constitutional mechanism is functioning successfully, and the country is consistently developing with a strong parliament along the democratic path.

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.

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.

The article analyzes the tasks of reforming the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which, according to the author, can be solved only with the adoption of the new Basic Law of the country. In this case, the following prerequisites should become key: economic reforms; certainty in terms of ideological foundations; improvement of the public authority system; improvement of the system of public authority; securing the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, the foundations of civil society and the institutions of direct democracy; reflecting the tasks of the country’s territorial organization; regulation of the law enforcement system. The new text of the Constitution should take into account most of the novelties of the 2020 constitutional reform. But since, according to the existing procedure, it is impossible to amend chapters 1, 2, 9 of the Basic Law and many innovations are reflected in other chapters, therefore, when creating a new text, itis necessary to clearly follow the logic of constitutional regulation.

The article examines and analyzes the scientific views of Professor Ninel Fedorovna Kuznetsova on the problem of the correlation of criminal and moral norms. Based on the works of N.F. Kuznetsova, being an outstanding representative of the criminological school of the Soviet period, the ideas dominating in the 60–70s of the twentieth century about the possibility of the complete eradication of crime in a socialist society, about the replacement of criminal law norms with moral norms are shown. Despite the fact that the works considered in the article were written during the existence of communist ideology, many of the provisions, conclusions and views of Prof. N.F. Kuznetsova are relevant at the present time. First of all, this concerns the issues of the correlation of moral norms and the norms of criminal law. The thesis on the characterization of the relationship between criminal law and morality as a harmonious and complementary interaction fully deserves support. The conclusions of the scientist about the reasons why certain acts are no longer considered criminal in a particular historical period have retained their relevance. First of all, this is due to significant socio-economic transformations in the society and the state, as well as to a decrease in the degree of public danger of individual crimes, their low prevalence and the absence of a tendency to increase their number

The article deals with the legal regulation of abortion procedures in the USA after the landmark 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization of the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court overruled its own precedents stating that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; the authority to regulate abortion belongs to state representatives. The main approaches to establishing the criteria for the legality of abortion, developed by the American states, the case law positions, especially resolving the ethical conflict of the mother-child competing interests, are covered in the article. The special attention is given to the historical roots for the adoption of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In particular, the legal position of the US Supreme Court on the issue of a right to abortion, expressed in previous court decisions, is analyzed, as well as medical and financial measures taken by states to guarantee the access to safe abortion. The norms of new legislative acts of the American states that significantly limit the possibility of abortion are also discussed. The main conclusion of the article is that the change of the US Supreme Court position regarding the right to abortion and the states’ interest to interfere can be legally and historically justified.

This article is devoted to debatable issues of qualification of hooliganism. The author analyzes the changes made to Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which regulates responsibility for hooliganism, and the practice of its application. The article deals with the problem of distinguishing between hooliganism and crimes committed out of hooligan motives: the author comes to the conclusion that these crimes are distinguished according to the signs of the objective side. The article also touches upon the problem of qualification of hooliganism committed with the use of violence in conjunction with crimes against health: the author comes to the conclusion that when solving this problem, it is necessary to be guided by the rule of competition between the part and the whole. In accordance with this rule, the norm providing for criminal liability for hooliganism covers beatings and intentional infliction of minor bodily harm, therefore, the relevant articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should not be imputed in conjunction with Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The article analyzes the problem of distinguishing between hooliganism on railway, sea, inland water or air transport, as well as on any other public transport (paragraph 1 of article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and actions committed out of hooligan motives that threaten safety operation of vehicles (Article 267.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The author comes to the conclusion that the main problems associated with the qualification of hooliganism are caused by legislative errors in the construction of this criminal law norm.

The article deals with issues related to the legal nature and ethical component of the institute of de minimis infractions provided for in Part 2 of Article 14 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Using Russian and foreign philosophical and legal concepts, the author substantiates the conclusion about the close connection between de minimis infractions and the Roman natural law maxim summum jus, summa injuria (“The rigor or height of law is the height of wrong”). It is noted that the essence of the institute of de minimis infractions consists in the refusal of the law-enforcer to implement criminal repression in order to achieve the requirements of justice of a particular case, contrary to the strict prescription of the norm provided by the article of the Special Part of the criminal law. On the basis of the analysis of practice of Russian courts in criminal cases, the article demonstrates that the mechanism established by part 2 of article 14 of the Criminal Code is applied in case of conflict between standards of morality and criminal-law prohibitions. In order to overcome this conflict, the law-enforcer analyses the act for the presence or absence in it of a sign of public danger, i.e. actually assesses the legitimacy of criminalization of an act in a particular case, in other words, the law-enforcer acts as if he were the legislator.

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.

The article deals with the problem related to the definition of the content of the category “unlawful interest” in relation to liability insurance. In Russian law, the question of the content of an illegal interest becomes especially relevant, since the lack of an answer to it leads to the inability to insure the costs associated with the application of administrative liability measures in the form of monetary fines to policyholders, which significantly limits the possibilities of developing insurance as a financial institution. The article notes that not in all legal systems the use of insurance is limited by establishing a ban on insuring illegal interests, as is the case in Russia by virtue of paragraph 1 of Art. 928 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. For these purposes, in addition to the direct prohibition of insuring illegal interests, a public order structure may be used that prevents the execution of an insurance contract in cases where such a contract violates public order. The author notes that despite the attempts of Russian scientists to determine what an unlawful interest is, according to the paragraph 1 of art. 928 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the answer to this question remains open and comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to determine the exhaustive content of the illegal insurance interest, because this category always implies the discretion of the court. However, for the purposes of practical determination of cases when the insurance interest is unlawful, it is necessary to be guided by the criteria developed by the doctrine and judicial practice for transactions that violate public interests, and in each specific case to assess whether the liability insurance contract violates public interests or not.

Obligations arising as a result of causing harm in the course of a counterterrorist operation remain poorly studied in the domestic doctrine to a certain extent. Meanwhile, in practice, more and more difficulties arise due to the lack of compensation for causing this kind of harm. The reason for this is the incorrect qualification of the relationship, as a result of which the interest of the victim often remains unsatisfied. The article attempts to identify and resolve problems in compensation for harm caused by a counter-terrorist operation. The main difficulties are connected, firstly, with the definition of the defendant, secondly, with the refusal of compensation, since the procedure established in the laws was not observed, thirdly, with the determination of the legal nature of compensation for causing such harm, and, finally, with compensation for non-pecuniary damage. As a result, the author comes to the following conclusions: (1) the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation acts as a defendant in such disputes, while compensation for harm should be made at the expense of the federal budget; (2) non-compliance with the formal procedure is not an unconditional obstacle to refusing to compensate for lawfully caused harm, since the legal nature of compensation provided for by law and direct compensation for harm are different; (3) the victim retains the right to claim compensation for harm caused by a counter-terrorist operation, despite the statu- tory compensation received; (4) the victim has the right to compensate for non-pecuniary damage.

The author defines the features of the civil legal regime of the animal and qualifies the behavior of the animal depending on its legal regime. The significance of this study is that it allows us to answer the question of responsibility for harm caused by animals. In the article, the author refers to the sources of Roman law, and shows the formation of ideas about the behavior of an animal in domestic law. The author explores the judicial practice in which the legal qualification of animal behavior is carried out. The author identifies cases and grounds for bringing to responsibility for the harm caused by the animals of their owners, critically assesses the recognition of animal husbandry as an activity that poses an increased danger to others. The author evaluates the right of subjects to refer to phenomena related to animals as grounds for exemption from liability for violation of an obligation. The author concludes that the legal consequences of animal behavior differ depending on the legal regime of the animal (wild and located in the natural habitat, wild, removed from the natural habitat, domestic). The author examines legal consequences of animal diseases (epizootics) for the owner of animals and other persons.

The article discusses the issues of possible reform of the higher education system in Russia in general and legal education in particular. The prerequisites for such a reform are analyzed and the opinions expressed on this matter by representatives of state authorities, the scientific community, public organizations, proposals for a possible rejection of the “Bologna system” (a two-level education system) are considered. On the example of legal education provided by the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The advantages and disadvantages of the “Bologna system” are identified, the goals and principles of higher legal education are determined, the requirements for the structure of educational programs are formulated, the advantages of integrated training of lawyers (integrated magistracy) are substantiated compared with the specialty and the current two-level bachelor’s and master’s degree system. The article pays special attention to the need to ensure fundamental nature in legal education, the formation of scientific and pedagogical schools, indicates the need to maintain continuity in the reform of higher education, taking into account the interests of persons who have graduated in the field of Law in different periods. The authors also touch upon the problems of rating law schools and raise the question of the expediency of codifying legislation on education in the way of fulfilling the task of providing the necessary legal support for the implementation of educational programs.

The review discusses a recent publication dedicated to the history of the Russian Constitution Court, its formation and evolution. The book is one-of-a-kind in the sense that it meticulously reveals the stages of transformation of constitutional justice in Russia. The authors present a rich historical and legal material — from the Orders of Catherine II, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, until the aftermath of the constitutional reform 2020 — in a lively and thrilling manner. A balanced academic approach has enabled the authors to demonstrate the whole variety of viewpoints that exist in the literature regarding various aspects of the formation, organization and activities of the Constitutional Court of Russia. Overall, the book shows the specific features of the Russian model of constitutional justice, its role in the legal order and the peculiarities of its interaction with other actors. The book raises questions regarding the meaning and consequences of numerous transformations of the system of constitutional review that have taken place in Russia. Particularly, it identifies the risks associated with the large-scale reform of 2020, and highlights the challenges that the Court is facing in the aftermath of the latest transformation.

Today, scientific discussions are gaining strength all over the world concerning the problems of determining truly effective forms and methods of legal regulation of social power, which is provided by the possession of gigantic global data arrays accumulated, analyzed and used in a digital network environment. In fact, modern technologies make it possible to build, on the basis of this kind of data, perfectly disguised algorithmic mechanisms for information management of the behavior of both the masses of people and each individual user of the modern Global Network. The existing legal environment turned out to be unprepared for a real solution to such problems — not only because it did not comprehend them doctrinally in time, but also because it turned out to be unprepared from an instrumental and technological point of view. The existing forms and methods of legal regulation (the current provisions of regulations and sanctions for their violation) are almost universally ignored by the real subjects of digital network media power (that is, the «digital class» of aggregators, owners and administrators of «big data»). Apparently, the time has come to regulate digital network media power with the help of a digital, network software and hardware legal environment adequate to its nature of online control, analysis of situations and making legal decisions (including in real time). The technical and technological means that make up this environment will not replace lawyers), just as neither typewriters nor computers have replaced the head and hand of a writer.

The article is devoted to the change in the legal status of landed estate of the Polish gentry in nine western provinces of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. The author draws on extensive regulatory and legal material and archival documents illustrating the reasons for the adoption of exemptions from the general guidelines on ownership and mortgage for the gentry, whose representatives received Russian citizenship after the “Kingdom of Poland” joining Russia in 1815. After two uprisings in the thirties and sixties of the XIXth century, persons of Polish nationality were recognized as unreliable subjects. A restriction of rights was introduced upon this strata to maintain order in the border lands of the Russian Empire. In this regard, the concept of “a person of Polish origin” was introduced into the legal acts, which did not apply to Catholics in general, but only to Poles and those Western natives who acquired Polish nationality. Thus, persons of Polish nationality constituted a group of subjects identified on a national basis, which was also associated with a confessional one. The analysis of the materials allows concluding that the supremacy of the interests of the state, expressed in the infringement of the rights of a social group identified as unreliable, was an effective method of state building and part of the strategy for protecting the interests of the Russian Empire.

The article makes a reasoned analysis of damages’ legal nature, provides arguments against the most common point of view in the academic and educational literature that damages are a measure of civil liability of a universal nature, which implies the establishment of the composition of a civil offense. The point of view that damages are unfavorable sanction for non-compliance with the obligation is criticized. An attempt is made to bring together damages as an economic category (negative balance as a result of summing up mutual claims of the parties to the legal relationship) and damages as a legal notion (damages as a way of civil law protection from negative property consequences of one of the parties based on existence of duty). The author adheres to a broader concept of risk distribution: negative consequences imposed on non-beneficiary of the victim’s estate may be based on not only defendant’s unlawful actions or inaction, but also on other grounds provided for by law, contract or principles of law, this makes it possible to expand the scope of application of this institution and explains the numerous examples of damages available in the legislation in the absence of an offense and grounds for the application of liability measures.

The question of finding the best option for ensuring the rights of persons against whom criminal prosecution is actually carried out has a long history, one way or another arises in many legal orders. Over the entire period of discussion of this problem, various mechanisms for its resolution were formulated, some of which were implemented at the legislative level and brought a significant positive effect. However, despite the variability of specific approaches, the task of properly guaranteeing the rights of criminally prosecuted persons is not removed from the agenda. Moreover, following the development of criminal procedure institutions, the improvement of forms and methods of combating crime, a complex of contradictions associated with the observance of the rights of alleged offenders also evolves. Thus, one can note the cyclical nature of the existing discussions, the degree of which rises from time to time. The Russian criminal procedure doctrine is currently in the phase of active discussion of this issue. In this regard, within the framework of the article, an attempt was made to evaluate the existing proposals, to understand why numerous ideas do not achieve a positive result, and in the end to answer the question of the advisability of continuing scientific research in this area.

This article, based on the achieved level of development of the theory and practice of prosecutorial supervision, which has proved its position in legal reality as an independent branch of law and a field of scientific knowledge, examines the current aspects of the improving of the legal regulation of the activity of the prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation as the most important state–legal institution. It is recommended that, among the sources of information necessary for this purpose, specifically refer to the results of historical and legal analysis of the evolution of the formation of legislation on the prosecutor’s office, materials of scientific research, legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on cases of examining the constitutionality of laws, both directly related to the activity of the prosecutor’s office, and other regulations related to its professional activity. The article highlights, within acceptable limits, the provisions essential for ensuring, according to the authors, proper legal regulation of the position, significance and content of the purpose and types of tasks on which the completeness, certainty and efficiency of the final results of the prosecutor’s office depend. In line with the provisions of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation” № 1-FKZ, March 14, 2020, the considerations on the legislative solution of the problem of the functions of the prosecutor’s office, possible counter-arguments addressed to the potential opponents of the multifunctional nature of the Russian prosecutor’s office are outlined. The article pays some attention to the issues of legal regulation of the powers of prosecutors, service in the prosecutor’s office

The constitutional reform that took place in 2020 affected many aspects of public and social life. One of these aspects was the functioning judicial system in the Russian Federation. In particular, the unified federal judicial system has lost one of its elements — the constitutional (statutory) courts of the subjects. It seems that such legislative transformations can be considered as a kind of finale of the history of regional constitutional control in the Russian Federation, which was discussed for quite a long time in the domestic legal doctrine. However, the format chosen by the federal legislator for the abolition of regional constitutional courts was actually aimed at transforming rather than eliminating the existing system, which is confirmed by the mention in the text of the relevant law of bodies completely new to the domestic system of public power — constitutional (charter) councils under the legislative body of the subject of the Russian Federation. The article provides a critical analysis of the transformation of the regional system of constitutional control, in particular, draws attention to two key problems: 1) inconsistency of the federal legislator in the organization of a new (reorganization of the old) system of regional constitutional control; 2) low interest of the regions in the development and strengthening of their own autonomous system of regional control. In conclusion, the author’s analysis of the current regional practice of the activities of regional constitutional (charter) councils is proposed.

For the development of Russian constitutional law, international anticorruption standards are of great interest, which are beginning to spread their influence on the ideas of national governments about modern requirements for regulating power relations. A good example of a traditional topic for constitutional law, which is affected by the anticorruption conventions of the United Nations and the documents of the “soft law” of the Council of Europe, are the issues of electoral law. Specialized international legal standards that try to curb corrupt practices during the electoral process have been developing since the early 2000s. The most well-known group of such standards is related to guaranteeing transparency in the financing of election campaigns and political parties. This article examines the Russian experience of implementing Part 3 of Article 7 of the 2003 UN Convention against Corruption through participation in a specially created “Mechanism for reviewing the implementation of the Convention”, and also analyzes the specifics of implementing the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe “On Common Rules for combating corruption in the financing of political Parties and election campaigns” 2003 through the mechanisms of GRECO — A special organization of the Council of Europe, designed to monitor the progress of States in improving national legislation in the spirit of pan-European anti-corruption ideals. Despite Russia’s formal withdrawal from the Council of Europe in 2022, the European anti-corruption conventions and mechanisms of this international organization continue to be an interesting object for study.

This article is devoted to the issues of the possibility and validity of recognizing an act as insignificant within the formally defined crimes. To this end, the author examines the understanding of public danger in relation to the question of the insignificance of an act with formally defined crimes in the doctrine and judicial practice. The article draws a conclusion about the role of the insignificance of an act as a tool that allows decriminalizing violations of regulatory legislation that do not have a criminal public danger within the formally defined crimes. This conclusion is revealed by the example of the corpus delicti provided for in Article 200.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author also substantiates the conclusions about the possibility of recognizing as insignificant an act within the corpus delicti with an alternative form of mens rea; about the need to bring a person to administrative responsibility for committing an act recognized as insignificant due to the absence of criminal public danger; on the need for the court to make a decision on the possibility / impossibility of recognizing an act as insignificant in each specific case and, accordingly, the inadmissibility of limiting the list of acts that can be recognized as insignificant by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (at least in relation to acts that have / do not have a criminal public danger).

The aim of the study was to analyze the legislation of the Russian Federation, Russian legal doctrine and judicial practice to identify a causation between a criminally punishable act — incitement to commit suicide and the consequence — suicide. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that the composition of a criminal act is formed when a direct causal link is established between the actions of the perpetrator and the suicide of the victim and cannot be formed if the suicide was committed due to other influences, factors or circumstances, even if it had the element of influence of the suspect, but it, however, is not decisive, does not directly entail a consequence. A consistent and thorough identification of a causation requires a mandatory comprehensive study of mental processes in consciousness, as well as the circumstances of the victim’s life in their dynamics, which motivated or could motivate him to commit suicide. The impact of a complex of such motivating circumstances may indicate a causality other than outwardly looking wrongful influence. Identification of secondary factors becomes more important for qualification. Establishing a causal relationship involves relying on the conclusion of a forensic psychological and psychiatric examination, which is relevant evidence.

This article continues the article devoted to the problem of the political responsibility of 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 article analyses views on intradepartmental normative document in terms of correlation of the concepts «normative legal act» and «local normative act» in legislation, function of Ministry of justice of Russia, regulatory document control and juridical literature. Referring to the theoretical division of departmental normative acts into generally binding and intradepartmental ones, author assumes the synonymy of the concepts «normative legal act affecting the rights, freedom and duties of a person and citizen», «normative legal act mandatory for federal state authorities, state authorities constituent entities of the Russian Federation, local governments, as well as legal entities and individuals» and «generally binding normative act». It is substantiated that intradepartmental normative documents cannot be considered normative legal acts affecting the rights, freedom and duties of a person and a citizen, since they apply to a certain circle of persons and their effect does not go beyond the limits of the relevant department. Considering specific departmental normative acts registered by the Ministry of Justice of Russia or challenged in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the author shows the impossibility of classifying them as generally binding normative acts, including citing as an example similar documents issued by entities not authorized to exercise legal regulation. It is proposed to abandon the practice of state registration of intradepartmental regulatory documents, the advantage of this abandonment from a practical point of view is noted.

The issues of legal protection of the environment, 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, among other things, in the introduction of digital technologies. The article raises the problem of the lack of clarity and unambiguity of the definition of the legal concept of “digital society” and all terms derived from it. The purpose of the study was to study the existing regulatory definitions and doctrinal approaches to the concept of digitalization in the aspect of state environmental management, which is considered as the process of introducing digital technologies into the activities of state bodies that improve the quality of their functions. At the same time, under the digital transformation of such management in the article, it is proposed to understand the transition to such a state of environmental management, which is characterized by the onset of specific socially significant results from the use of digital technologies. The readiness of public administration in the field of environmental protection for digital transformation — regulatory, software, technical support, training, etc., should be called digital maturity, which, in turn, is a prerequisite for digital transformation, transition to a digital society.

The legal institution of the use of land plots without their provision and the establishment of an easement, a public easement, is not only new, but also contains a number of unusual legal structures. In this regard, it is important to find out its general direction, correlate it with similar legal categories, find out the legal significance of a number of conditions, and also determine ways to improve existing norms. It is concluded that the emergence of this institution is based on the need to promptly resolve the procedure for the limited use of the spatial properties of the land (land) and expand economic opportunities. Since public ownership of the land remains, and the person using the land plot does not have the rights to the land indicated by the Land Code of the Russian Federation, it is advisable to provide in a separate rule that the permit is issued for use on conditions that are the least burdensome for the current and future use of land (land plots). The current legal regime for permitting the use of land (land) on the grounds under consideration does not provide for the conclusion of an agreement on the use, however, the legislative regulation does not contain an imperative norm that would prohibit such an agreement. The land (land plot) is used in this case as an economic resource, which to a certain extent reduces its value for the public owner. Therefore, conceptually, one should proceed from the fact that in cases where the legislator does not directly establish a ban, the issuance of a permit may also provide for a fee for use.

Constitutional revolution is an order of constitutional change, the validity of which is not based on the current constitution, does not comply with its norms, and is not carried out in accordance with the procedures enshrined in the constitution. When the constitutional revolution is carried out, the limits of changing the previous constitution are violated and constitutional review over their observance is not carried out or to no avail. There are two theories that explain the validity of the constitution adopted as a result of the constitutional revolution: the theory of external legitimacy and the theory of internal legality. The theory of external legitimacy assumes that the basis for the validity of the constitution is external source: God, the people, a charismatic leader, etc. The validity of the constitution is not subordinate to it itself, but has an extra-constitutional source of origin. The new constitution receives from this external source its legitimacy, which makes up for the legality lost as a result of the revolution. The theory of internal legality assumes that the basis for the validity of a constitution can only be an internal source — the constitution itself. The new constitution finds its validity from itself. On the one hand, this approach is logically contradictory, since it is self-referential and explains the phenomenon by referring to itself. On the other hand, it excludes a transcendental and other objectively unverifiable explanation of the constitution. The validity of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, adopted as a result of the constitutional revolution of 1993, is based on the theory of external legitimacy, which links the validity of the constitution with its effectiveness.

The issue of international responsibility continues to be one of mist debatable topics among academia and in the decisions of international courts and tribunals. One of the major features of the WTO is a highly specific and to certain extent unique system of responsibility for violation of WTO rules elaborated by the founding member states. As a result of significant deviations from the classical approach as provided by the International Law Commission in its both Drafts Articles of international responsibility, WTO rules of state responsibility are widely treated by academia as lex specialis with its own advantages and disadvantages. Despite of existence of some rules of state responsibility in the Treaty of the Eurasian Economic Union such rules are mostly of sporadic, case-specific and badly coordinated character based on misguided borrowing of WTO approach which is ill-suited for the purpose of creation of common internal market. The necessity for the EAEU to create its own complex of norms on liability should not lead to a blind replication of either ILC or WTO approaches, as this could be at odds with the objectives of Eurasian integration. It’s suggested as one of possible alternatives to use the approach of the Court of Justice of the EU rejecting almost from the very beginning a classical international law canon of horizontal control performed by the states themselves backed by the use of the horizontal measures of enforcement towards the state violating its obligations.

The article is a continuation of the doctrinal and legal analysis of the decision of the Vilnius District Court to give retroactive effect to the law, namely to impose a criminal penalty on the basis of articles of the Lithuanian Criminal Code of 2000 as amended in 2011 in relation to the events of 1991. The publication also examines the issue of the Court’s failure to refer to the UN Charter and the UN General Assembly Resolution of 1974 on the definition of aggression for the purpose of substantiating allegations of “Soviet aggression that began in 1940 and continued” against Lithuania. The Court’s qualification of the actions of units of the armed forces and law enforcement agencies of the USSR in January 1991 in Vilnius as war crimes and crimes against humanity on the basis of the application of the provisions of the Charter of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, the Convention on the Inapplicability of the Statute of Limitations of 1968 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the Protection of Victims of War are considered from critical positions. Taking into account the refutability of the Court’s statements about the alleged crimes committed by the Soviet Union in 1940–1991. acts of “occupation”, “aggression”, “crimes against humanity”, “war crimes” and other “crimes under international humanitarian law” justify the general conclusion about the illegality of the decision of the Vilnius Court on the application of the norms of Lithuanian national criminal legislation with reference and on the basis of the international legal acts considered in the publication.

On January 18, 2021, Alexander Konstantinovich Golichenkov, Editor-in-chief of our journal, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education, Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Department of Economic and Land Law, Dean of the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University, turned 70.

Several months have passed since the sad date of the passing away (July 7, 2021) of the outstanding French penalist Jean Pradel — time enough to not be limited to the dry text of the formal obituary, but to try to look at his personality and work a little more broadly.

The article is devoted to the problem of qualifying fraud associated with deliberate failure to fulfill contractual obligations in the field of entrepreneurial activity (parts 5–7 of Art. 159 of the Russian Criminal Code). The author examines the concept of “the sphere of entrepreneurial activity”, drawing attention to controversial points in the interpretation of this concept in the science of criminal law and judicial practice. Despite the current clarifications of the Plenum of the Russian Supreme Court on the problem under consideration, in judicial practice there are errors in understanding the boundaries of the sphere of entrepreneurial activity, which in turn does not allow to effectively prosecute those persons who resort to fraudulent schemes when carrying out this activity. In addition, the clarifications of the Russian Supreme Court contain neither signs of entrepreneurial activity, nor criteria for its determination. Scientists and practitioners also have different assessments of the boundaries of entrepreneurial activity, as indicated by the author. Often, the understanding of the sphere of entrepreneurial activity also differs in criminal law and civil doctrine, although from the point of view of the unity of approaches, this situation leads to unfounded accusations. Often, the legal actions of persons in the field of entrepreneurial activity are also classified as crimes. Complicating judicial practice and ultra-active application of the now abolished Art. 1594 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The study allowed the author to formulate criteria for determining the scope of entrepreneurial activity for the purposes of Art. 159 of the Russian Criminal Code, to come to the conclusion about the need to change the interpretation of the sphere of entrepreneurial activity in legislation and law enforcement practice. The implementation of the proposed amendments and the use of these criteria will make it possible to effectively apply criminal liability measures to those who have committed crimes in the sphere of entrepreneurial activity

The author aims to analyze the impact of Soviet legislation on the development of Belarusian regulation in the field of nuclear waste management this publication. The subject of this research were legal acts since the construction of the first nuclear power plant on the territory of the USSR. It is noted that republican and Soviet legislation was applied until 1992, regulating the issues of radioactive waste management. An analysis of the documents establishing the rules for radioactive waste management is presented. The dynamics of improving the legal definition of “radioactive waste” in the acts of the USSR is analyzed. It is noted that the radioactive waste generated as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in accordance with the Belarusian legislation is separated into a different group, for which a special legal regulation has been established. The system of the Belarusian legislation of the post-Soviet period, which regulates the management of nuclear waste, including international legal acts, laws and other legislative acts is research. It is concluded that the legal regulation of the field of nuclear waste management in the USSR, which included Belarus, had detailed regulatory requirements, which were influenced by historical facts, scientific and technological progress and other ongoing events, which served as the basis for the formation of the national legislation of the Republic of Belarus in the studied area.

The motivational function has essential features that distinguish it from other functions of law. It allows us to reveal such essential properties of social security law that do not manifest themselves when studying other functions. Taking as a basis the mechanism of motivational influence, including the laws of motivation, the structure of motives and their classification, the paper examines the issues of motivational influence that are important for the law of social security. The study revealed that pensions, benefits, and other types of social security have motivational significance not so much for social security legal relations as for labor legal relations. This confirms that social security and, first of all, pension rights are formed not in social security legal relations, but in labor, service or business legal relations. But these rights (the right to a pension, the right to benefits) are certain motivators for persons engaged in labor activity. In other words, motives that have a legal nature and are formed on the basis of the norms of social security legislation, encourage the subjects of labor relations to more productive work. Attention is also drawn to the shortcomings of the system of motives, it is shown that in certain cases it is more correct for the state to provide additional pension benefits, thereby assessing the previous work activity of citizens and establishing additional motives for those persons who have not yet retired.

The article examines the problem of extending the principle of party autonomy to non-contractual obligations from the historical perspective. The stages of the formation of supranational regulation of this issue in the European Union, in individual national legal systems, as well as in the Russian Federation are described. Both accepted and rejected by the legislation and the doctrine modalities of the choice of applicable law for non-contractual obligations are explored. From the position of historical development, the article analyzes the key dichotomies constituting the problem of the legitimacy of choosing the applicable law in non-contractual obligations: the justifiableness of the ex-ante choice of the applicable law, or the validity only of the ex-post choice; the admissibility of choosing as applicable the law of any foreign legal order, or the advisability of establishing criteria that limit the range of choice; the validity of the party autonomy in any legal relationship, or the reasonability of limiting or completely abandoning the party autonomy depending on the sphere of civil transactions or on the characteristics of the parties involved in legal relations. The author comes to the conclusion about the dynamic spread of the principle of party autonomy in non-contractual obligations over a relatively short historical period, along with the tendency to expand the scope of the principle of lex voluntatis in involuntary relations in general, as well as the liberalization of the modalities of such a choice of applicable law, in particular. Based on the results of the study, the author predicts the further elimination of a number of restrictive norms and an increase in the practical and doctrinal significance of the freedom to choose the applicable law in non-contractual obligations.

The article sets the challenge of assessing the regulatory function of taxation in relation to the production of polymers from hydrocarbon raw materials (plastic), as well as based on the study of the impact of plastic on the environment and human health the author seeks to develop tax and legal measures aimed at reducing the production of plastic. Herewith consideration is given to the possibility of producing polymers from alternative sources other than hydrocarbons (bioplastics). Currently, there are tax incentives in the Russian Federation aimed at processing hydrocarbons into plastic. This stimulates the production of plastic. But at the same time, the legislation does not sufficiently take into account the need to protect the natural environment and human health in relation to the widespread use of plastic and its degradation to microplastics. The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to introduce excise taxes on a number of plastic products, in particular, on plastic bags. The author’s conclusions are supported by references to international experience in this matter. On the other hand, the production of bioplastics should be exempt from excise taxation. The article also analyzes possible measures of tax incentives for the collection and processing of plastic. The author draws attention to the need to create material incentives for the population in relation to the collection of plastic. Such incentives can also be based on excise taxes and partial exemptions from excise taxes on the production of recycled plastic.

The article examines how in the process of centralization was changed the form of the state unity of Russia. The topic is interesting not only a theoretical understanding of the problem, but also a historical and legal analysis of the existing state unity of Russia. The article traces that the change in the form of the state unity of Russia is associated with the liberation from vassal dependence on the successor of the Golden Horde, the Great Horde. The article substantiates that the creation of a unified Russian state and its centralization differ somewhat in time, although they coincide at the last stages. These changes began to manifest themselves, first of all, in the change in the legal status of the feudal elite, the service class, which was reflected in the status of their land holdings. These changes manifest themselves after the feudal war of the middle of the XV century and are expressed in the strengthening of the central government (the order of succession to the Grand ducal throne changes and the power of the Grand Prince increases), specific land ownership is practically nullified and residential land ownership becomes the main one, the free transfer of boyars and free servants from the Grand Duke to other landowners is prohibited. This contributes to the creation of a consolidated class (social group) of serving people in the fatherland.

Reviewed the monograph by E. A. Frolova “Rational Foundations of Law: Classics and Modernity”. The reviewers come to the conclusion about the relevance of this book and its significance for the development of theoretical-legal and philosophical-legal thought in Russia and note that E. A. Frolova objectively investigated the essence of law from a theoretical standpoint. This approach gave her the opportunity to identify urgent problems of modern legal science and propose ways to resolve them. The review notes the deep study of legal sources, as well as scientific literature of various centuries, carried out in the course of the study.

The article reveals the main ideas and content of the current monographic research on the topic “Changing of Technological Orders and Legal Development of Russia” (Moscow, 2021), in which the author’s concept of legal genesis is presented on an interdisciplinary basis. This concept determines the legal genesis of the defining role of the dominant technology and technological structure of Russian society. Based on the position of the authors of the monograph, the specifics of the emergence, state and dynamics of the development of law, its regularities are largely determined by the technological factor at a particular historical period of time on the path of society’s movement from the traditional to the post-industrial type. Revealing from new methodological positions the fundamental natural connections of technological, economic and legal processes significant for the general theory and history of law at different historical stages, the authors build a certain logic of cyclical, wave development of the history of Russian law, due to the convergence of economic, technological and legal processes proper. An original interpretation of the periodization of the history of Russian law depending on technological structures is given, it is shown that in the evolution of domestic law, changes in its systemic and structural characteristics, a special place should be given to the role of the technological factor and the problem of dialectics of economic, technological and legal convergence.

This research is the fourth in a series of articles devoted to the issues of genetic and legal education. In the first work, the author revealed the measure of freedom of the subject of law determining the mode of data use on the example of genetic information; in the second — the measure of freedom of the subject-addressee of genetic education in the context of its content; in the third — the features of the forms of genetic and legal education in the society of the Industry 4.0 era. The objective of the article is to analyze the work of genetic and legal education executors. The success and effectiveness genetic and legal education directly depends on its executors, who have to have the particular knowledge in respective field. And if this problem is being solved on school education level, then in regards to the remaining multimillion audience there’s still a lot of work that specialists have to do. As a result of this the objectives of this article are to study specific competences of genetic and legal education executors and study the form and means of this education. Authors focus on education factors which influence the competence model of subjects, performing genetic and legal education, composition. They also focus on the skill set and knowledge that the team of these educators should have, meaning special skills of genetic and law education executors are being analyzed. This article views the practical meaning of genetic and law education, its types and corresponding to it methods (official and unofficial education) are being analyzed. Authors conclude that it is necessary to conceptualize genetic legal education, and therefore provide relevant recommendations for science and practice pointing out the necessity to combine official and unofficial forms of education and work over the question of introduction of “genetic ombudsman”. In the course of this study, logical, comparative-legal and formal-legal methods were used.

The article examines the possibility of prosecution for the crime of aggression committed through cyber-attacks (cyberaggression) under international criminal law. The author analyzes the material elements of the crime, examines the most extensive cyberattacks in the last 15 years and concludes that such requirements of the art. 8bis as commitment of the act of aggression only by State and the threshold requirement for the act of aggression to reach the level of manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as the lack of indication on the opened or closed list of acts of aggression in art. 8bis, makes its application to cyberaggression difficult. The Rome Statute’s provisions on the subject of the crime of aggression which limit both primary perpetrators and accomplices to those who are in position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the action of a State, prevent cybercrime perpetrators from being held liable for the crime of aggression. Similar difficulties arise when applying the mental element requirements of the crime of aggression to possible cases of cyberaggression, such as intent and knowledge to commit crime of aggression. At the same time the author recognizes the possibility and even the need to extend the definition of aggression to cases of committing this crime through cyberattacks.

The legal problems associated with Austria’s permanent neutrality are discussed in both Austrian and Russian international law literature controversially. Already the establishment of the Austrian neutrality in 1955 raises some legal questions. This article addresses — after an introduction to permanent neutrality as an institute of international law — the question of whether the Austrian neutrality is anchored in international law and, if so, on what legal basis that anchoring is based. By means of a comparative presentation of the Austrian and Soviet/Russian international law doctrine, an attempt is made to work out which of these various legal opinions appears justifiable from the view of the international law of neutrality. It will be shown that the obligations arising from Austria’s status of permanent neutrality go beyond those that are explicitly mentioned in the federal constitutional law on neutrality (Neutrality Act). Furthermore, it is presented that there are convincing reasons to argue for an anchoring of the Austrian neutrality in international treaty law in the Moscow Memorandum (April 1955) as well as in the State Treaty of Vienna (May 1955) and that the notification of the Neutrality Act provides another opportunity for a legal basis in international law. Furthermore, an attempt is made to show why the legal opinion which assumes that the Austrian neutrality is merely anchored in the Neutrality Act, and thus only on national law ground, has to be rejected.

The key question of this article is whether legal claims and legal privileges (in Hohfeldian sense) are to be regarded as self-sufficient entities of their own, or they should be paired with other elements like legal powers. The basic thesis of the piece is that legal power is an indispensable element of a legal right of each and every type in private law. To demonstrate the viability of this basic thesis, the German concept of the so-called claim right (der Anspruch) in private law has been put under scrutiny. Various theoretical models of a claim right, as developed in the German private law doctrine, have been analysed (theories of B Windscheid, E. R. Bierling and A. Thon). All of them conceived claim right as inextricably connected with the legal power to dispose. Basically, the same is true of privileges (liberties in the Hohfeldian scheme of jural relationships), which, as the author thinks, cannot operate without legal powers.

Modern constitutional-law scholarship, paying considerable attention to the methods of interpretation of the Russian Federation Constitution, often bypasses the substantive issues of interpretation of constitutional concepts, usually pushing them into the field of legal technique. A large number of studies focus on the issues of constitutional terminology, i. e. on the external aspect of constitutional concepts, leaving aside their meaning and place in the system of constitutional regulation. Meanwhile, the proper determination of the content and scope of a constitutional provision depends directly on the interpretation of the concept that forms the basis of the constitutional norm. For this purpose, the Russian Constitutional Court, which is authorized to interpret the Russian Federation Constitution in an official and binding way, applies the method of autonomous interpretation, which involves interpreting constitutional notions in the system of constitutional provisions without limiting to the definitions given to them by the statutory regulation. This method of interpretation has not been thoroughly understood in the domestic constitutional-law science in relation to the activities of the Russian Constitutional Court. However, under the conditions of the increasing complexity of the system of legislation, as well as in connection with the participation of the Russian Federation in international organizations, the autonomous interpretation of the Russian Federation Constitution may be in demand in the practice of the Russian Constitutional Court.

Changes to regulations on dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation provoked a vivid discussion among the Russian legal professionals. It appears that arguments in this discussion are closely connected to approval or disapproval of constitutional judges’ dissenting opinions as such. The present paper attempts to discuss the legislative amendments regulating dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court from another perspective, namely through a comparative study of regulating of this sphere in dynamics, in Russia and abroad. For the aims of the study it is proposed to examine normative regulations on the right to dissenting opinion from “material” (right to dissenting opinion) and “procedural” (right to publish a dissenting opinion) aspects. The comparative analysis allowed identifying similarities and unique elements of the current legislation with that in foreign countries. Establishing requirements for contents of a judge’s dissenting opinion or to the form (style) of its expression can be regarded as relatively common. Yet, the situation where public expression of a dissenting opinion of a judge of a constitutional supervisory body is impossible while judges of general courts encounter no such limitation, is rather unique.

The teleological approach, which is based on comparing the obtained result with the set goals, is often used to determine the effectiveness of legal regulation of environmental relations. The correct formulation of goals in environmental legislation and taking into account a number of relevant factors affecting formulation of the goals, can increase the accuracy of determining the effectiveness of environmental legal regulation. The aim of the study is to establish the key characteristics of the goals of legal regulation of environmental relations, which lead to a correct determination of the effectiveness of the regulation. The task of analyzing the goals enshrined in the legislation in the aspect of identifying their clarity and unambiguity is set. The problem of the increased role of economic interests in the legal regulation of some social relations that are closely connected to environmental ones was raised. Because of this, the state of the environment is excluded from the overall assessment of effectiveness. There are shown examples of laws that are actually ecologized due to the essence of regulated relations and due to the presence of norms of environmental law in them, but in which are not goals that have bound to the regulation of the impact of economic or other activities on the environment. Some of the new institutions of environmental law are assessed as ambiguous in terms of targeting. It is emphasized that the goals of regulating of environmental relations are based on the concept of a favorable environment. It is concluded that environmental interests, if any, should be reflected in the setting of legal goals. The conditionality of goals by the existence of environmental interests, the clarity and transparency of their formulations, in their part, entail the correctness and completeness of determining the effectiveness of environmental legal regulation.

One of the topical problems of compensation for environmental damage is the elimination of accumulated environmental damage (AED). These include objects of unauthorized disposal of waste of past activities, which currently do not have a proper owner. The negative consequences of AED are manifested in the form of the same harm as from current economic and other activities, and with the legal qualification of harm as accumulated, only the fact of termination of the activity as a result of which such harm is caused matters. The current owners of enterprises, who are not the cause of the accumulated harm from past economic activities, cannot be held liable for its elimination. The planned result of the work on the elimination of AED is to bring the physical, chemical and biological indicators of the state of contaminated areas in accordance with environmental quality standards. Modern legislation does not give a complete and unambiguous idea of the necessary actions to eliminate environmental damage from the facilities of the AED. In such a situation, the issue of the quality of the development of project documentation on the performance of work on the liquidation of the AED facilities seems to be especially relevant. The article is devoted to the analysis of regulations governing the development of such documentation.

Territorial public self-government is one of the most effective ways to involve citizens in the exercise of municipal power. It is a kind of foundation of local self-government, ensuring effective interaction of the population and local self-government bodies. For its correct understanding, the author offers a historical and legal analysis of the development of this institution. This paper examines the main stages of the development of territorial public self- government in modern Russia. The reference point is proposed in 1991, and the basis of the comparative analysis is the basic law on local self-government of each historical stage and the emerging law enforcement practice. The author notes the conceptually different approach of the legislator to territorial public self-government, including the legal status of its subjects, the powers of state authorities and local self-government bodies to legally regulate the organization and implementation of territorial public self-government at various historical stages. Based on the results of the analysis, the most urgent issues of further development of CBT are identified, the author concludes that it is expedient to legislatively consolidate the powers of state authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation to establish additional measures of state support for territorial public self-government. Taking into account the geographical and spatial features of a number of regions, the expediency of returning powers to the subjects of the Federation on their own legal regulation of certain issues of the organization of territorial public self-government is justified.