The paper is devoted to the historical and legal aspects of political theology: its civilizational path (in Modern and Contemporary Times), its impact on the legal understanding and implementation of ideas related to the concepts power, state, law. Political theology serves as the metaphysical foundation of political structures and institutions. The issues of political and religious areas, their mergers are investigated through the prism of dialectical development. Special attention is paid to the symbolic side of political theology. The category institutions is examined as a set of corporate, organic and instrumental entities that consolidate and fix the processes of legal genesis. The institution is associated with a number of political and legal conditions of a particular state and acquires its legal significance through the psychological accession of citizens by unanimous consent. The category symbol can be traced in the mythologized and religious perspective of power. The state power has always, since the most ancient times of the existence of mankind, required some kind of mysterious sacralization and worshiping. In general, the life of a social group organized and endowed with permanence, i.e. representing a stable institution, turns out to be included in the circle of symbolic procedures and rituals. Fundamental positions of Maurice Hauriou and Carl Schmitt had a great influence on the research. As for the views of outstanding jurists (set forth in the works “Fundamentals of Public Law” and “Political Theology”), it is important to emphasize their value for domestic science and practice. In the complex world realities of today, the theories that reveal the postulates of sociolaw and geolaw popular in Russia arouse unconditional interest among scholars and politicians.

The paper is devoted to the examination of the concept and essence of a social welfare state. The author studies the history of the formation of the concept of a social welfare state, correlates it with the state of prosperity, analyzes various approaches to the definition of the welfare state, classifies the models of the welfare state. The author criticizes the opinion that distinguishes between a paternalistic state and a welfare state and comes to the conclusion that a paternalistic state is an extreme form of a welfare state when the latter guarantees a high level of social safeguards. The paper concludes that the welfare state is directly related to such categories as social equality, social security, solidarity of society, social tension, social policy, as well as a number of other categories. At the same time, social justice is the central category, since it is the category that represents the goal for which the state conducts its social policy.

The paper is devoted to the examination of the degree of influence of digital transformation on public control. The author assumes that, under the influence of digital transformation, the nature of public control will remain unchanged, this phenomenon will have a significant impact on the forms and methods of public control. It is determined that the use of digital technologies in public control is possible in three main directions: 1) receipt by the subject of public control of information about the activities of the controlled object; 2) analysis of the activities of the controlled object by the subject of public control in order to determine its compliance with public interests; 3) adoption by the subject of public control of measures to remedy the identified deviations. The paper analyzes the practice of using a number of digital technologies in public control, including the practice of using digital projects at federal level, namely: “Vash kontrol” [Your Control] and “Nasha Priroda” [Our Nature], as well as digital projects at the regional level — the project of the city of Moscow “Aktivnyi grzhdanin” [Active citizen]. In addition, the paper determines the prospects for their further development.

The paper analyzes possible negative consequences of the use by a regional operator to pay for complete repairs of the apartment buildings of funds paid by the owners of the premises of other houses. The right of a regional operator to use such funds on a refundable basis is established by federal law and is actively applied in most regions of the Russian Federation. However, in practice, it is not always possible to return the funds borrowed in this way, which is a serious problem for the regional operator, undermining its financial stability. In addition. this requires the development of mechanisms to guarantee such a refund. The current requirements for regional capital repair programs, in conjunction with the established responsibilities of the regional operator, force the regional operator to ensure that major repairs are carried out even in those houses where repair is inappropriate. The subsequent exclusion of these houses from capital repair programs creates problems affecting the financial stability of the regional operator.

The paper is devoted to the study of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the United States of America and foreign states and international organizations that have joined them, as well as the analysis of measures aimed at countering unfriendly actions undertaken against the monetary system of the Russian Federation. The paper examines the historical aspects of the anti-Russian policy of Western countries, analyzes provisions of regulatory legal acts and other official documents adopted by the United States and the countries of the European Union, aimed at destabilizing payment and currency relations in Russia. The authors investigate the counter-sanctions policy and measures aimed at ensuring the stability of the Russian monetary system in general and the national payment system in particular. It is concluded that the use of the dollar and the euro as a weapon of sanctions war, the practice of confiscating reserves and assets of countries pursuing policies that do not correspond to the interests of the United States and dependent states, restricting access of financial institutions of “rogue countries” to American and European financial resources, disconnecting credit institutions from SWIFT, and other sanctions inevitably lead to the formation of a parallel international financial system, of which a fundamentally new international monetary system will become a part.

The paper analyzes the current legislation in the field of mediation and notarization of mediation agreements. It is noted that the agreement became enforceable when, according to the law, the agreement reached by the parties as a result of the mediation procedure conducted without submitting the dispute to the court or arbitration was given the force of an enforcement order provided it was notarized. The emergence of such a mechanism simplified enforceability of mediation agreements and attracted attention of the community, which gave rise to an increase in appeals to the mediation procedure and a simultaneous increase in the cost of the procedure in connection with the notarization of mediation agreements. The authors summarized the experience of conducting bank mediation procedures and identified issues arising during the notarization of mediation agreements. The paper summarizes the practical aspects that, according to the authors, hinder the development of mediation procedures in the banking sector of the economy. The paper formulates proposals aimed at improving the procedure under consideration.

One of the most difficult and oldest issues of shared ownership is the legal nature of a share in joint shared property. Since the time of Roman law, legal scholars have not been able to come to an unambiguous solution to this problem. The paper analyzes the basic concepts of the legal nature of the share in joint shared property proposed by the scientific legal community and the legislator. Four main concepts are subject to detailed research: a) the concept of an ideal share in a thing; b) the concept of a real share in a thing; c) the concept of a share in the value of a thing; d) the concept of a share in ownership. The author describes advantages and disadvantages of a particular concept. The paper determines the inconsistency of the current Russian legislation in determining the essence and purpose of the share in joint shared property. It is concluded that it is impossible to create an ideal concept. The author believes that the share in the ownership of a shared thing should be considered not as part of the ownership (since the ownership right is uniform), but as a special restriction of the full-fledged ownership, expressed in a numerical coefficient. It is necessary to determine this numerical coefficient mainly for solving organizational issues (establishing the order of the use, management of the commons, etc.) and when dividing the shared property: when the legislator uses the majority principle in making decisions regarding the shared property and only when dividing the shared thing when the legislator uses the principle of unanimity. The author proposes the most acceptable, in the author’s opinion, concept of the legal nature of the share in the joint shared property.

Consolidating the institution of protection of a bona fide purchaser, the current legislation simultaneously established special rules for the recovery of funds and certain securities. Good faith constitutes the condition for protection of the purchaser of such objects. Taking into account that possession legitimizes the authorized person in relation to bearer securities, the purchaser will be in good faith in almost all cases when the alienator owned such securities. Despite the fact that cash is not securities, they have some similarities, in connection with which it should also be assumed that the legitimization of the authorized person in relation to the funds is carried out through thier possession. In view of the peculiarities of money as an object of law and civil turnover, as well as in order to facilitate protection of the owner’s rights through other means of protection, it is advisable to exclude the possibility of reclaiming money, including from a mala fide purchaser. In this case, the owner has the right to file a claim for damages against the offender instead of claiming money. In addition, there is currently competition between the norms of Clause 3 of Article 147.1 and Clause 3 of Article 302 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which otherwise stipulates the list of securities that cannot be claimed from a bona fide purchaser. In law enforcement, Paragraph 3 of Article 147.1 should have priority over paragraph 3 of Article 302 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as a norm adopted later. Meanwhile, considering that documentary securities are things in respect of which their owner has a proprietary right (ownership), reclamation of such securities should be fixed in Chapter 20 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, namely in Article 302, which establishes the specifics of reclaiming property from a bona fide purchaser.

Social security law has a fairly wide list of payments characterized  in the current legislation as compensation payments. A feature of compensativeness is manifested in pension provision, in various types of benefits, and in various kinds of social security insurance payments. In addition, social security law provides for payments that are directly referred to as “compensation payments”. This causes difficulty both in the formulation of definitions of the concepts of each category of payment, and in the practical application of social security legislation. The situation is aggravated by the fact that compensation is also characteristic of payments of other legal affiliation. Based on this, the study of socio-security monetary representations in order to identify distinctive features of the compensatory property is relevant. It should be noted that within the framework of the paper, a function is considered as an essential property of a certain legal phenomenon. Therefore, the function as a property is inextricably linked with the legal phenomenon. Accordingly, if we are talking about the compensatory function of social security law, then it should be taken into account that the mechanism of compensativeness should be incorporated into the procedure for calculating compensation payments.

Transformation of the labor sphere, transition to the service economy and information society raise the question of protecting not only “classical” labor rights, but also the personal non-property rights of employees, the formation of a safe and comfortable working environment. This is especially relevant for the branches of labor law of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia), where effective legal mechanisms for protecting personal rights remained beyond the attention of the legislator. The paper analyzes labor, administrative and criminal legislation of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union from the standpoint of their compliance with international labor standards reflected in the conventions and recommendations of the International Labor Organization in terms of protecting workers from discrimination, harassment and mobbing. The paper describes the content of the institution of labor protection and provides an overview of the existing legal mechanisms for protecting the personal rights of employees. It also contains recommendations on changing the labor legislation of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union.

The paper studies the legal regime of questioning an attorney (defense lawyer) as a witness in the client’s criminal case.

Given the opinion of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the author considers in which cases it is necessary to obtain a preliminary judicial determination on the performance of investigative activities against an attorney. The paper analyzes the constitutional and legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, given in the ruling of April 11, 2019 No. 863-O, and the emerging court practice. The author concludes that the investigative practice of calling upon and questioning an attorney as a witness in their clients’ cases without a preliminary court determination can be adjusted by the specified definition of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. Based on the constitutional and legal positions reflected in the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation No. 863-O, an attorney cannot be brought to trial in a criminal case where he provides legal assistance to the client. Also he should not be forced to participate in investigative actions that are being carried out against him without obtaining a preliminary determination.

If there is a preliminary court determination to conduct investigative actions against an attorney in the status of a witness in his client’s criminal case, it is impossible to challenge the attorney in this criminal case. If the investigator fails to comply with these requirements, the recognition of the evidence obtained in this way should be deemed inadmissible, and the right of the principal to defense should be considered violated. This violation should be recognized as significant and regarded as an obstacle to consideration of the criminal case on the merits in the judicial stages of the domestic criminal process. If we are talking about violations of a criminal law nature on the part of a lawyer, his principal or a third party, the guarantees of the regime of lawyer secrecy do not apply to such relations. It is not necessary to obtain a preliminary court determination on the questioning of a lawyer as a witness in such situations.

The paper is devoted to ways to overcome accusatorial bias in Russian courts. The main ways are the provision of courts with worthy personnel and the creation of an independent first instance court, which does not exist now. The author substantiates the thesis that the absence of an independent court of first instance is the main prerequisite for the existence of an accusatorial bias. The factors that undermine the independence of the first instance court are the right of the appellate courts to remand the case for a new trial when the sentence is overturned, and the existing system for assessing the quality of the administration of justice. The Russian judiciary lives in a situation where a judge’s moral certainty does not match the opinion of a higher authority, which causes trouble for him and negatively affects his career. He is forced to adapt to someone else’s opinion. To overcome the accusatorial bias, a new culture of judicial decision-making must be formed. When making a decision, the judge must be independent not only from the executive or legislative power, but also from higher judicial instances. It is proposed to legislatively limit the right of appellate courts to return cases for a new trial and provide for the right of appellate courts to issue a guilty verdict instead of an acquittal.

The paper is devoted to the problem of reliability and accuracy of criminal proceedings records made with shorthand recordings and audio recordings of a court hearing. The current opinions on this issue, of both scholars and practitioners, are analyzed in detail. Based on empirical data, namely the disciplinary practice of the qualification board of judges, the results of a study of 255 verdicts, 200 criminal cases, surveys of 257 Russian lawyers, as well as the professional experience of the author, who is a practicing lawyer, it is concluded that this problem remains relevant and topical. In order to resolve the problem posed by the author, it is proposed to introduce a number of changes to the criminal procedural legislation, namely, Art. 259 Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation. The issue of using the possibilities of digital technologies in order to strengthen guarantees for the protection and realization of the rights of participants in criminal proceedings through the introduction of an electronic format of a criminal case is also being considered.

The paper deals with the theoretical problems of understanding preliminary forensic analysis of material traces, their distinguished types, technological essence, goals, objectives, as well as the subjects of these studies. Based on an analysis of modern forensic and legal literature, the author concludes that preliminary forensic analysis is undoubtedly non-procedural in nature and is carried out on the basis of special knowledge, relevant technical and forensic tools and methods, and information support. These are applied both in an inspection of the scene and other investigative actions in non-laboratory (field) conditions, and in laboratory conditions on the basis of a written task of the body of inquiry, empowered to carry out operational-search activities. It is also carried out when checking objects for forensic records in order to obtain guiding information about the relevance of the objects under study, their characteristics used to identify the persons involved in the criminal event, the mechanism of trace formation, crime instruments, other items and substances that are important for the detection and investigation of crimes. The paper emphasizes that at present only an expert (forensic specialist — for objects of traditional forensic research, other specialists — for objects of non-traditional research) can be a subject in the field of technology for the direct conduct of all types of preliminary forensic research. At the same time, the methodological support of these studies has a simplified (lighter) design in comparison with the methods of expert conclusions.

The paper considers one of the most specific systems of law that includes modern democratic norms of law and conservative, religious traditions. This system of law is the national family law of the State of Israel. The centuries-old religious norms of law in the field of marriage and family relations remained archaic until the declaration of Israel’s independence. This resulted in the creation of a new national system of legislation that met international standards. However, due to the importance of preserving traditions, as well as the zealous attitude to their observance on the part of religious groups living in Israel, the norms of religious law in the field of marriage and family relations have become an obligatory part of the legislation in this area of law. At the same time, being a progressive state to the extent possible, Israel is constantly developing the legal framework in the field of human rights, especially the right to marriage and family, in accordance with all the norms of treaties to which it is a signatory. The norms of Jewish law, Muslim law are an obligatory part of the laws of the State of Israel, in particular in regulating the divorce procedure. The divorce among Jewish couples, as well as Muslim couples, is carried out in accordance with the norms of the religious law of each denomination, which are enshrined in the regulatory legal acts of the State of Israel. However, cases of termination of marital relations of mixed (interfaith) couples are not an exception. In connection with the complication of relations at the present stage, it is necessary to constantly develop legislation in the field of divorce procedure, especially in cases of termination of marital relations of mixed (interfaith) couples, so that prevent any form of discrimination.

In order to resolve the issue of acceptability of the states’ appeal to existing mechanisms for ensuring safe and systematic development of international relations in the ICT environment, the author determines the main approaches appearing in joint communiqués and agreements issued following the results of conferences and high-level meetings of representatives of the Russian Federation and its partners and the allied bloc of the USA, the countries of the European Union and other states. By interpreting such terms as “information weapons”, “cyber weapons”, “cyber espionage”, the difficulties associated with the process of creating a secure ICT environment are identified. The result of the study is the identification of security tools that are relevant and optimal from the point of view of the current state of international security law in relation to the ICT environment and that can be recommended to be used by states in order to form a secure mode of interaction in the framework of the exercise by states of their functions in the foreign policy arena amid the global information space.

The object of the study is the legitimate interest of the victim and its reflection in the right of the victim to know about the suspicions and charges brought against him in a criminal case. The victim is interested in being informed in a timely manner about procedural decisions that determine the scope of suspicion and accusation, so that they are confirmed. This need of the victim is not sufficiently reflected in the criminal procedure law: they are not informed about the suspicions and charges formulated by the body conducting the criminal procedure. In fact, the victim receives relatively complete information about the charges against them only at the stage of completion of pre-trial proceedings, namely familiarization with the case materials. In this regard, the paper proposes to introduce into the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Kazakhstan the norms fixing the notification of the victim about the date, time and place of the announcement to the suspect of the decision on the qualification of the act, handing him a copy of this decision, a copy of the report on the criminal offense after its approval by the prosecutor. Insufficient awareness of the victim about the quality of the investigation at the stages following the bringing of the accused to trial by the prosecutor creates conditions for setting charges that do not meet the interests of the victim and leads to judicial errors. A change or waiver of charges in court is accepted by the public prosecutor without taking into account the position of the victim. These problems are proposed to be solved by postponing the consideration of the case and issuing by the court an order to the pretrial proceedings to eliminate the gaps in the investigation, and if it is not fulfilled, to make a decision based on the available evidence.

The paper is devoted to the study of problems related to the definition of the legal regime of land and land plots in Russia by establishing the types of permitted use in accordance with the territorial zoning. The issues raised in the paper are especially relevant in connection with the alleged exclusion from the Land Code of the Russian Federation of the principle of dividing land and land plots into categories according to their intended purpose. As a result, the main problems of establishing the legal regime are identified, such as the lack of legislatively fixed terminology in the field of establishing the legal regime and permitted use, the impossibility of establishing the types of permitted use for certain categories of land, and the underdevelopment of the institution of zoning territories. In this regard, there are problems in establishing the legal regime of land, since several types of zoning can be distributed to one territory, between which there is no relationship and subordination. The author concludes that the institutions of territorial zoning and permitted use require detailed revision. The paper suggests some ways to solve the identified problems. The necessity of legislative consolidation of the terminology associated with the establishment of the legal regime of land and the development of territorial zoning is emphasized.