Moscow University Law Bulletin. 2020. 2.

Federation Council is the chamber of the Federal Assembly of Russia (parliament of the Russian Federation). The author analyzes the procedures for the formation of the chamber — in the past and at present. Attention is drawn to the fact that in this process the sending of federal and regional functionaries to the Council of the Federation is prevailing. The author suggests proceeding to the election of members of the Federation Council by the population of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

The article discuses the circumstances in which the appearance of self-incrimination and reservation on the part of the person held criminally liable. The main criteria are given that allow one to assess the reliability of a person’s confession of guilt in a crime and to distinguish between true and false confessions. When assessing the confession obtained, it is necessary to take into account how fully and accurately the accused (suspect) is aware of the circumstances and details of the criminal event. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the possible suggestive nature of the various investigative actions used in the process of incriminating a person of a committed crime, presenting material evidence and other factual information.

Despite the requirement for clarity of terminology, the text of the criminal law has polysemy — the ability of a word, phrase, or other constructive object to have several meanings. The article analyzes the most problematic, according to the author, phenomena of polysemy in the criminal legislation of Russia. Some aspects of interbranch polysemy are considered. The terms with ambiguous or undefined definitions are identified, the real problems of law enforcement related to polysemy in criminal law are fixed, the main causes of the polysemy are identified, and ways to overcome the duality of interpretation of criminal law terms are indicated.

The article raises the question of the appropriateness of applying Art. 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for the qualification of crimes committed by medical workers in the field of professional activity. The author examines certain issues of the theory of qualification of crimes, referring to the works of famous scientists. The article also examines the official acts of the highest judicial bodies, analyzes the law enforcement practice.

The concept of interpretation in constitutional law covers a wide range of meanings, each of which relates the definition of the meaning of the text to solution of a particular task, and to performance of a certain function. Defining the meaning of a text means not only to know, describe and explain, to solve and apply, but also to observe interpretation rules, be a participant or observer of the interpretation process, enter into an interpretation dialogue, and in some cases, concretize, develop and even shape the law.

One of the central principles of contract law — pacta sunt servanda — is universally recognized in legal doctrine and is based on a number of philosophical and legal theories, the most common of which are “Promise Theory”, “Theory of Will”, as well as “Efficiency Theory”. The study of these theories allows us to state the absence of historical continuity between the original and subsequent meanings of the principle, and lack of a concurrent point of view within the doctrine. In addition, various foundations of pacta sunt servanda are multidirectional and sometimes mutually exclusive. Finally, none of them has a logical connection with the legal nature of contract, but relies on more general legal and philosophical concepts. Under such circumstances, the ambiguity of understanding of the principle by legislators and judges, as well as its practically absent implementation in positive law, seems quite understandable.

The existence of a “party organization” in corporations is one of the features of corporate governance in China. This article discusses the problems of the participation of the Chinese Communist Party in the corporate governance of state-owned enterprises in China. At the same time the prejudices and misunderstandings of the legal significance of this participation are analyzed, the legitimacy, expediency and advantages of this participation are justified. Based on the study, the author proposes to improve legislation in order to make the status of party organizations more defined in the structure of corporate governance.

The article suggests a possible approach to creating a digital educational environment (hereinafter also referred to as DSP), namely, the methodological and technological prospects for the development of the digital educational space of a law university / faculty, examined through the prism of the criteria for the quality of legal education. The key definition of the digital educational environment, developed during the methodological work on the preparation of the priority project “Digital Educational Environment of the Law Faculty of the Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov” (also referred to as the Project) in 2019 — early 2020. The basic principles of the development and implementation of this Project are considered: the principle of evolutionary changes in the educational environment, the principle of the gradual development of DSP, the principle of automation of the educational process. The characteristic of the stage of the pilot implementation of the DSP components within the framework of the Project is given, the features of scaling and development of the DSP are analyzed. Quantitative indicators of distance learning are presented at the Law Faculty of Moscow State University (hereinafter also referred to as the Faculty of Law, Faculty) in a pandemic, which can be described as «emergency delivery of educational content».

Improvement of electoral legislation is an important direction of changing the national legislation in general. It is a multi-purpose initiative, its key points are both improvement of the electoral process itself and promotion of large-scale realization of many rights and freedoms of citizens.

The article deals with the influence of the leading question on the confession. The leading question, however, is not only understood in the traditional sense of the term as a question that contains information that prompts the answer. More broadly, it is a matter that accompanies the use of any information of evidence, the reporting of factual information in various investigative situations. This question leads to a certain answer. Introduction of the concept of “probability-oriented question” allows to differentiate between information and actions of a leading nature.

The article reveals the concept of “counteraction to the investigation of crimes”, justifies the conclusion that counteraction to the investigation of crimes by lawyers (defenders) cannot be legal contrary to the opinion of a number of well-known criminalists who believe that such counteraction can be legal.

The article discusses the dialectical representation of the subject of forensic science, the reflection and role of consistent patterns and contingency in the disclosure and investigation of crimes. Definitions are given to the concepts of “consistent patterns”, “contingency”, examples of their understanding and use in science. It is noted that in forensics randomness often has a negative meaning, it is perceived as randomness, unpredictability, absurdity, but it can also have a positive meaning when randomness “plays” in favor of the investigation and provides the investigator with some freedom of choice.

The article discusses the legal nature of public control in the field of waste management in comparison with other types of control and supervision activities, environmental management functions, a separate type of public control — public environmental control. An analysis of the relationship between the legal regulation of public control in the field of waste management and the legal regulation of public environmental control, as well as public control in general, was carried out from a formal and substantive point of view. The vagueness of legal regulation in some aspects makes it impossible to unambiguously identify cases where relations regarding the implementation of public control in the field of waste management are regulated with those features that are established in the legislation on environmental protection. The legislation on public control can be applied to public control in the field of waste management, with normatively established exceptions and with the obligatory taking into account the general conclusions of the science of environmental law.

In the present article the author considers main arguments and conclusions made by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 1951 in the Reservations Case from historical perspective as well as general political and legal context. The analysis performed by the author reveals related advantages as well as drawbacks of the compatibility test and the system of the horizonal individual control over the reservations suggested by the Advisory Opinion. The author argues that despite of the obvious weak points of the suggested test and individual control over the reservations the Advisory Opinion of 1951 remains one of the most significant achievements of the Court radically changing the status of the reservations and paving the way to successful codification of international law.

The law of the Republic of Belarus “on amendments to laws” dated July 18, 2019 No. 219-Z introduced significant changes and additions to the Labor code of the Republic of Belarus. These innovations can be assessed as the third global reform of labor legislation. Law No. 219-Z of July 18, 2019 introduced a new Chapter in the Labor code of Belarus on the contract system of employment, in which the norms from a number of decrees of the President of the Republic of Belarus were implemented. A number of conflicts, legal and technical errors related to the adoption of the Law of July 18, 2019 were identified. No. 219-Z, which may lead to problems in practice when applying the updated Labor code of Belarus. The authors make suggestions for improving the labor legislation of Belarus. A comparison is made with the labor legislation of the Russian Federation. It is concluded that the Belarusian lawmaker approached the reform of the Labor Code without sufficient conceptual understanding.