Moscow University Law Bulletin. 2024. 2.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.