To understand the essence of transformations in the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Empire that took place as a result of the Judicial Reform of 1864, it is necessary to clarify the legal situation and the actual role of the Prosecutor’s Office during the pre-reform period. In this regard, the paper analyzes functions of the Prosecutor’s Office that were assigned to the Prosecutor’s Office before the Judicial Reform. The author explains relationships between prosecutors and attorneys-scriveners and the provincial administration and shows their actual dependence (as well as legal dependance for an attorney-scrivener) upon the administration. The author investigates the attempts of the Ministry of Justice at the legislative level to provide for the independence of attorneys-scriveners from governors and provincial boards with their subordination only to provincial prosecutors. The paper elucidates the content of the supervisory function of the prosecutor’s office that was the main function of the Prosecutor’s Office. Activities of the Prosecutor’s Office in the field of criminal procedure constituted an insignificant part of all its activities. At the same time, the powers of the prosecutor in the criminal process were limited. The study shows that at the pre-trial stages of the criminal procedure, prosecutors and solicitors were in charge of crime detection, supervision over investigation and care of detainees. The prosecution function of the prosecutor’s office was not completed and involved initiating criminal prosecution before the provincial administration. The criminal investigation function of the Prosecutor’s Office was limited. To supervise investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office was given certain powers that were carried out in parallel with the supervisory powers of the governors. Moreover, the prosecutor’s supervision was of secondary importance compared to the supervision exercised by governors, who plaid the main leadership and supervisory role in the criminal process. It is shown that during the pre-reform period, due to the large number of general supervisory duties, the supervision over criminal investigation was formal and unsatisfactory.

The paper carries out a comprehensive analysis of legal artefacts and law enforcement practice of the period of the Moscow centralized state. In particular, the author suggests his own characteristic of the Law Code of 1497 that is well-known and widely discussed in the historical and legal theory. In this context, the author tries to reconsider approaches and views established in the doctrine concerning the meaning, role, legal force, effect of this act in time, space and personal scope. According to the author, this artefact due to its features and characteristics is a typical charter for that time. The only difference from other normative legal documents is that the Law Code of 1497 was developed with the participation of a wide range of representatives of the princely administration, as stated in the preamble, whereas most of the charters were almost always adopted and approved by the monarch alone. By the nature of the legal technique and the quality of elaboration of certain provisions, the legislative act under consideration represents a draft version of another normative act. Accordingly, it is difficult to say that the Law Code of 1497 as a whole had any influence on law enforcement practice, its unification, formation of the legal system of the Moscow state, and on the further processes of its centralization.

The study elucidates historical and logical necessity of an ethical and philosophical dimension of law in the form of an ethical examination of applied problems and situations (especially in relation to law) arising in the context of new technological threats. The author dwells on the paradigm of the upward development of society and protection of human rights not in the context of an individualistic dominant of the Western type, but in the context of priority of preserving, developing and improving society as a whole in the direction of a high ideal that presupposes restoration of justice based on true knowledge of the real state of affairs. It is suggested that the goodwill of those who perform the work demanded by society constitutes the necessary condition. The paper describes the specification of its methodology understood in the broad sense of the word, when ethics is considered as the pinnacle of philosophy. The author concludes that the strategy of strengthening morality in law is not only in demand, even salutary, for society as a whole and for every one. Morality is such a phenomenon that you need to constantly and purposefully work with. 

The paper analyzes the status of election commissions as safeguards of ensuring and protecting political competition in the Russian Federation. Political competition is considered in the context of elections as a mechanism for implementing constitutional principles of alternation of power and ensuring political rights of participants in electoral relations. The paper describes a specific place of election commissions (primarily, the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation — CEC) in the political system, which determines their potential in protecting political competition. The key characteristics of election commissions due to which they can protect political competition involve their remoteness from the political market, lack of interest in the results of competition, and impartiality and independence in making decisions involving public power. The leading role of the CEC of the Russian Federation in protection of political competition is determined taking into account its status as the agency heading the system of election commissions in Russia, as well as taking into account the fixed scope of powers in relation to participants of the electoral process. The author determines some problems limiting the potential of election commissions in protecting political competition. These include, in particular, issues of election commissions formation, problems of ensuring their independence, insufficient powers to regulate electoral relations, etc. It is concluded that it is impossible to increase transparency and competitiveness of the political system without comprehensive institutionalization of election commissions at all levels of public authority. This implies expanding capabilities of election commissions to regulate the political market and implementation of guarantees of their independence. At the same time, it is noted that protection of political competition, despite a significant role of election commissions in political competition, cannot be reduced exclusively to their activities, since it also requires an adequate level of judicial protection of political rights and strengthening public control over electoral procedures.

The paper examines the content of the prohibition on overcoming a court decision on recognition of a normative legal act as invalid by the repeated adoption of the same act as one of the legal effects of such court decisions. Based on examination of legal standings of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the author explaines the constitutional and legal purpose of the prohibition under consideration. The study of the judicial practice of considering cases challenging regulatory legal acts indicates fairly frequent violations of this prohibition. Taking into account legal standings, courts should avaluate negatively situations when courts overcome recognition of a normative legal act as invalid by the repeated adoption of the same act also from the point of view of showing disrespect for the judiciary and its decisions. In order to exclude such situations, consistent implementation of the principle of constitutional integrity and reasonableness of actions of public authorities, formed in the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, is required in the field of rule-making. The issue of developing mechanisms of constitutional and legal responsibility of public authorities in case of violation of this prohibition also requires attention. At the same time, it is necessary to adjust the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation (CAP of RF) in terms of establishing exceptions to the possibility of overcoming this prohibition. Taking into account the significant impact of judicial examination of compliance with regulatory acts, it is no less important to ensure uniformity and generalization of judicial practice on issues of challenging normative legal acts, especially as a result of creation of appeal and cassation courts of general jurisdiction. This issue can be resolved through introduction of a mandatory generalization of the practice of judicial rule control in relation to regulatory legal acts of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities.

The paper examines the concept and essence of punishment individualization as a principle of proceedings in cases of administrative offenses. This principle is implemented by consolidating in the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses of the ordinary rules for imposing administrative punishment applicable to any administrative offense, and special rules applied to individual administrative offenses and those who committed them. On the basis of a systematic analysis of ordinary and special rules of sentencing, law upholders use such methods of individualization as determining the rules for punishment imposition within the limits of the sanction provided for under the relevant article of the Special Part of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation and under the laws of constituent entities of the Russian Federation on administrative offenses or the possibility of imposing administrative punishment, the type or size of which is not provided for by sanctions of the relevant provisions. The paper explains the system and content of the criteria of individualization taken into account for the imposition of administrative punishment and the practice of their application. The author considers safeguards for implementation of the principle of individualization of punishment.

The paper analyzes the civil legal personality of a public law company. According to the results of the study, the author concludes that the private interest of a public law company as a participant in civil legal relations, as well as the ways of its implementation (the range and content of legal relations that are formed for their implementation) are formed under the influence of the public interest of the Russian Federation. In view of this, civil legal capacity of a public law company is predetermined by its legally established public powers and activities and has a «competence» character. The scope of the civil legal capacity of a public law company is subject to change when its public powers change, which indicates the labile nature of its civil legal capacity. When exercising civil legal capacity, subjective rights arising from a public law company have a reactive effect for third parties beyond the civil legal relationship. The paper describes limitations of the principle of freedom and autonomy of its will in relation to a public law company.

Allocation of qualified criminal bankruptcy structures based on the characteristics of the subject will definitely solve the problem of disproportion in the number of reported crimes and sentences due to stricter sanctions and, as a result, longer periods of limitation for criminal prosecution. Meanwhile, violations of technical and legal rules committed in the process of rulemaking resulted in the situation when designs of illegal actions in bankruptcy and intentional bankruptcy are divided into two groups: acts committed by debtors-citizens, and acts committed in connection with the business activities of legal entities. At the same time, identity of socially dangerous consequences laid down by the legislator in both groups of bankruptcies and unsettled sanctions for the commission of the corresponding crimes allowed the author to raise the question of violation of the principle of equality, which cannot be justified by the differentiation of criminal liability. In turn, unjustified reception of insolvency law provisions will lead to the situation when determining the signs of a controlling debtor, judicial practice will follow a path similar to the establishment of a situation of unlawful actions in bankruptcy, which contradicts the insolvency law and the practice of its application. In addition, there is a risk that innovations provided for under Part 2.1 Article 195 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will in no way affect the heads of debtor organizations. The author concludes that it is not expedient to supplement Article 195 of the Criminal Code with Part 4 and provides the wording for Parts 1, 1.1, 2.1 of Article 195, Part 1, 2 of Article 196 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with due regard to the meaning laid down by the law-maker when reforming relevant criminal law rules and the rules for designing the elements of crimes.

The study is devoted to the norms of criminal and penal law regulating relationships associated with evasion from serving the imposed punishment. This kind of non-criminal omission to act is not a crime, while it belongs to the category of criminal. Using the examples of court decisions, the author substantiates the relevance of researching a «non-criminal inaction» in the form of «evasions». The author investigates various types of evasion and gives his definition of an illicit criminal omission to act as a kind of «criminal offense». On the basis of the analysis of the criminal and penal legislation and judicial practice, the author determines general characteristics inherent in non-criminal evasion from punishment or serving the imposed punishment in the form of non-criminal inaction as a type of criminal offenses. The author concludes that it is necessary to consolidate the category of a «criminal offense» in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Penal Code of the Russian Federation. 

The paper discusses the issues of understanding the terms that make up the right to privacy and protection of private communications between individuals in criminal proceedings. The author studies the current state of legal regulation and the problems related to the implementation of this right in obtaining evidence in criminal cases. The paper analyzes the algorithms of judicial control over the legality of the restriction of the constitutional right to the inviolability of private communications using foreign doctrines of «necessity (restrictions) in a democratic society», as well as «expectation of privacy test». The foreign experience of resolving these issues within the framework of various legal systems, including the practice of the ECtHR, is considered. The problem of judicial authorization of access to data in the electronic memory of subscriber devices in the course of various investigative actions is scrutinized. Based on the findings, the author proposes to improve the national legal regulation of procedures for monitoring the legality of restricting the right of citizens to the inviolability of their private communications in criminal proceedings, as well as to improve the guarantees for the application of these procedures in judicial practice.

Large-scale digitalization of social processes covers more and more areas of human activity, including criminal justice. At the same time, in the context of digitalization and likely digital transformation, it is important to preserve the moral basis of criminal proceedings. The paper discusses the degree of stability of the moral foundations of the criminal procedure in the face of the latest digital trends, analyzes the likelihood of changes in the system of moral principles in criminal proceedings in the context of digitalization. The author concludes that domestic criminal justice is at the initial stage of digitalization. At the moment this process does not pose serious threats to its moral principles. As various information and technological innovations (artificial intelligence, robotics, neural networks, etc.) are introduced into the criminal procedure, the risk of undermining its moral foundations increases significantly. Thus, the safety of moral principles in criminal proceedings is directly dependent on the limits of its digitalization. In general, it is possible to ensure the security of the fundamental provisions of the criminal procedural legislation, which are based on moral norms, if important conditions of a humanistic nature are observed in the process of introducing digital technologies. The use of a technocratic approach in the course of digitalization of criminal proceedings can cause irreparable harm to the moral and legal foundations of criminal procedure.

The paper considers debatable issues that arise in the course of procedure under Ch. 40.1 of the Criminal effectiveness of the investigation of crimes that are difficult to prove. The main attention is given to the problem of determining the moment from which it is possible to conclude a plea agreement. According to the author, if the provision of information about the possibility of concluding such an agreement does not depend on the status of the person at the current moment of the proceedings (suspected or accused), then the very conclusion of a plea agreement should be possible only after the preliminary investigation conducted under the general rules and without any exceptions in the evidentiary activity and after justified charges are brought. At the same time, the charges brought against the person in the event of a plea agreement must remain unchanged. The author answers the question whether the confession of guilt by the accused is a prerequisite for concluding a plea agreement, or whether it is only necessary to obtain his consent with the prosecution, as provided for in Chapter 40 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. It is concludes that since the confession of guilt by the accused is an integral part of the consent with the charges, both an confession of guilt and an agreement with the accusation should be mandatory conditions of a plea agreement. A plea agreement is a deal between the prosecution and the defense, which must be concluded strictly after the charges are brought. It is necessary to amend the current structure of the criminal procedure rules by excluding such a potential participant in the conclusion of a plea agreement as a suspect from Ch. 40.1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.

At present, forensic appraisal does not have a sufficient theoretical basis. This brings about more and more questions among the expert community about what type, genus and even class this forensic examination belongs to. Without theoretical foundations, forensic examination cannot be included in the existing classifications, because there is no consensus on what is meant by its subject and tasks, and also what should be attributed to the objects of forensic evaluation. The paper analyzes the works of scientists who cover theoretical foundations of forensic appraisals and outlines the author’s position on the topic. The author notes that today in the scientific and expert community there is no consensus on the theoretical aspects of forensic appraisal. Based on the results of the study, the author’s definition of the subject is proposed, tasks are formulated and the distinctive features of the objects of forensic appraisals are described. Attention is given to digital objects of expert research within the framework of both civil, arbitration and criminal proceedings.

The paper discusses tax on self-employed income in the Republic of Belarus. This state, together with the Russian Federation, forms a single Union State and is part of the most important supranational formation in the post-Soviet space: the Eurasian Economic Union. In this regard, the experience of legal regulation of self-employed taxation in the Republic of Belarus is important for the Russian theory of tax law, since it allows us to determine the vectors for further harmonization of the tax legislation of the EAEU member states, without which full-fledged economic integration is impossible. The conducted analysis of the current system of taxation of income received by self-employed in the Republic of Belarus allows us to state that it is more variable than the similar system in Russia. Moreover, in Belarus, both civil and tax legislation more clearly defines the status of self-employed citizens, and the state seeks to stimulate this type of activity. At the same time, the introduction from January 1, 2023 of a tax identical to the Russian tax on professional income allows us to conclude that Russia has chosen the right way to tax self-employed citizens through introduction of advanced digital technologies into this mechanism that provide information exchange with the tax authorities.

The paper analyzes the provisions of Russian and German legislation on the regulation of co-authorship relations. The study revealed the following features. By virtue of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the joint work of several persons can be carried out in the mode of both separate and inseparable co-authorship, including intermediate modes allocated doctrinally. The German legislator names only inseparable co-authorship as a basis for the appearance of co-authors, all other cases are covered by the regime of linked works. Co-authorship can only arise if there is a joint creative work, which implies the understanding of the co-authors that they work together (subjective criterion), as well as a single period of time, being at the same «stage of production», the existence of an agreement between the co-authors, etc. (objective criterion). German jurisprudence clarifies: co-authorship is not excluded in the case of incremental contributions, but it assumes that each participant has made his own creative contribution, subject to a common idea. It is not required that the co-authors simultaneously participate in all stages of the development of the work. Accordingly, the so-called vertical division of labor is possible, in which the co-authors rely on already created preliminary versions of the work, as well as the horizontal division of labor, when the co-authors simultaneously create separate parts of the work, which then merge into a single work. The presumption in Russia of equal contribution of co-authors to the creation of a common work is applied in Germany on a subsidiary basis, if it is objectively impossible to determine this contribution. The main regulators of the rights of co-authors (authors) in Russia and Germany are the law and the contract, sometimes a court decision. The use of a work created by co-authors is carried out jointly, taking into account the principle of good faith, which is explicitly present in German law and follows from a systemic interpretation of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

The paper presents the results of a study of the features of the legal regulation of educational activities, taking into account the changes made in 2021 to the Federal Law of December 29, 2012 No. 273-FZ «On Education in the Russian Federation». This paper is one of the first studies of its kind on a topic related to the legal regulation of educational activities as a special area with significant prospects. Previous studies of the chosen topic dealt with many issues, in particular the organization of legal education, but this paper contains several fundamentally new approaches. In particular, it is substantiated that educational activities involve the formation of educational legal relations that connect the provider of educational activities and those who are educated. Within the framework of these legal relations, a provider transmits information to those educated with specific restrictions. At the same time, the content of the transmitted information itself depends on the specifics of the request of a particular group of consumers, identified according to social, age, professional, religious, territorial and other criteria. A significant place in the paper is given to the study of the relationship between educational activities and learning activities. Unlike highly regulated learning activities, educational activities are characterized by a much greater degree of freedom for participants and flexibility in terms of organization. At the same time, the system of legal regulation of educational activities that has been formed today is not without flaws, which suggests the need to improve it.