Il’ya R. Mamatkazin

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 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 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.