The paper defines the author’s approach to the concept, types, and features of the means of human rights activity of the State. The paper analyses the question of the correlation between the categories of «goals» and «means» from the point of view of various philosophical movements. The author has examined the correlation between the following concepts: means, methods, tools, legal means and human rights means. It is proposed to consider human rights tools in philosophical, institutional and instrumental aspects. The analysis of the means of state human rights activity enshrined in legislation is carried out, their signs and classification are proposed.
It is shown that it is the availability of appropriate tools and their professional application that gives the state human rights activity an effective character and distinguishes it from other types of human rights protection. The analysis made it possible to conclude about the need to increase the consistency of the means of state human rights work.
Proposals have been developed to improve normative legal regulation in the context of the development of public human rights activities.

The paper provides the author’s point of view regarding modernization of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in the context of civilizational development of Russia. The paper examines the interrelation between the content of the constitutional norm and dynamically changing conditions of its operation and determines the reasons for the transformation of the nature of constitutional regulation. In the authors’ opinion, strengthening of the civilizational foundations of Russian society in the face of growing contradictions in the world political arena and in the global economy is possible only by referring to the rich historical experience of domestic state and legal construction, as well as by improving constitutional regulation aimed at affirming and strengthening state and national sovereignty. Modernization of the Constitution of the Russian Federation by introducing amendments in 2020 created the prerequisites for further sustainable development of the country’s political system and society as a whole.

At the present stage of society’s development, the introduction of digital tools is obvious in many spheres of life, in particular in the field of education, which causes the widespread need for high information and digital literacy of students and teachers of various educational organizations. The COVID‑19 pandemic required serious adjustments to the educational process around the world, as educational organizations had to rebuild the learning process and transfer it to an online environment. In turn, that led to the inability of many to receive education at the level of a conventional off-line education. The paper raises the problem of digital inequality in Russian education. The author highlights the most important aspects of such inequality, concerning material and technical support, skills and abilities of participants in the educational process, content of the educational process in the context of digitalization, and suggests ways to overcome them. The paper analyzes the provisions of the national project «Education,» the national program «Digital Economy of the Russian Federation,» as well as the provisions of federal projects. Based on the analysis, the author concludes that the advantages of digitalization in the educational sphere are used unequally.

The debate on the right of citizens to carry short-barreled weapons, including firearms of limited destruction, has been going on for more than 30 years. The essence of these debates goes far beyond the limits of administrative law, since it is not limited only by the administrative law mechanism for implementing the procedure for acquiring, carrying and using weapons, acting as part of the public legal mechanism for ensuring personal security, security of the society and the State. The relevance of the issues of civilian arms trafficking is aggravated by the complication of the criminal situation during periods of social or economic upheavals that determine the choice of the trajectory of development of state policy for arms trafficking as an area of public law relations.
The arguments of supporters and opponents of the use of firearms for self-defense are usually accompanied by arguments based on faith and beliefs rather than on facts and measurements.
The purpose of the study is to summarize the legal and empirical resources characterizing administrative law foundations of state policy in relation to lethal and non-lethal self-defense weapons; to assess domestic legislative decisions and determine the directions for further administrative law development of state policy regarding arms trafficking, the expediency of using short-barreled weapons, including firearms of limited destruction, as selfdefense weapons.
The interdisciplinary approach made it possible to combine the results of legal and other humanitarian studies. In particular, the achievements of branches of legal sciences of Russian law are brought together: administrative law, theory and history of law, criminology and criminal studies, sociology of law.
In conclusion, the paper provides the results of a theoretical study with due regard to the historical, delictological and sociological context of the problem. The author substantiates the necessity of changing the legal foundations of state policy in the field of trafficking in self-defense weapons and gives appropriate proposals.

The paper is devoted to the study of the works of leading pre-revolutionary and Soviet period researchers representing the science of financial law in relation to issues related to financial sovereignty. The work analyzes textbooks on financial law written by E. N. Berendts, S. I. Ilovaisky, V. A. Lebedev, D. M. Lvov, I. I. Patlaevsky, I. I. Yanzhul, V. G. Yarotsky, M. A. Gurvich, G. S. Gurevich, S. A. Kotlyarevsky and E. A. Rovinsky. It is noted that at an early stage of development (the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century), the science of financial law had not yet formed a unified idea not only about financial sovereignty, but also about the content and system of financial law as a science. At the same time, the authors of this period paid special attention to the problems of financial supremacy (the law of supreme power in the field of public economy). At the initial stage of the formation of Soviet power, researchers do not focus on studying the essence of financial sovereignty. Later, the Soviet authors proceeded from the position based on constitutional provisions, according to which it was the Union republics that possessed sovereignty manifested in the recognition of the fullness of their power on their territory and the right to independently carry out financial activities. It is concluded that granting the status of a sovereign State to individual Union republics, also in the field of financial activity, is inconsistent with the essence of sovereignty and the essence of the federation as a form of government. In the federation, the bearer of sovereignty can only be of the federal level of government common to the whole country.

The paper analyzes the balance between the procedural institution of acceptance of interim measures by the courts and the material institution of ensuring the fulfillment of obligations by issuing independent (bank) guarantees. The author raises the issue of the intrusion of interim measures into the independent nature of the guarantee relationship and justifies the approach according to which such interim measures may be permissible if there are signs of abuse of the right by unscrupulous beneficiaries. The paper analyzes the practice of both arbitrazh courts and courts of general jurisdiction and the approaches of courts to the adoption of interim measures prohibiting banks from making payments under a bank guarantee. The author also touches upon the issues of the standard of proof when courts apply interim measures in guarantee relations. In conclusion, it is substantiated that alternative methods of restoring the rights of the principal or guarantor in the form of collecting unjustified enrichment from an unscrupulous beneficiary may not be effective enough.

The paper is devoted to the issues related to the observance of the rights of authors and copyright holders in the creation and development of advanced technologies. The paper concludes that the use of objects of copyright and related rights, topologies of integrated circuits in the training of artificial intelligence technologies is an unnamed way of using the corresponding objects. It is established that the use of these objects in a similar way without the consent of the copyright holders should be recognized as a violation of exclusive rights. In addition, it is proved that the use of information about protected objects of patent law in the training of artificial intelligence algorithms is not a violation of patent rights from the point of view of current legislation. The conclusion is formulated about the need to consolidate mechanisms to ensure the rights of authors and copyright holders of results of intellectual work used in the creation and development of advanced technologies. Similar mechanisms are proposed by the author. It is proved that in the absence of such mechanisms as technology develops, a situation may arise when ensuring the rights of developers of advanced technologies will be carried out to the detriment of respect for the rights and legitimate interests of authors and copyright holders.

Appropriative art, i.e., the result of deliberate processing of someone else’s work or part of it, carried out in order to demonstrate one’s own creatively independent artistic declaration, de lege lata falls under the category of a derivative work. Neither Russian law nor foreign legal regulations establish a special exemption from the exclusive right, similar to the exemption applied to works in the genre of parody or caricature, the creation and use of which is considered as a case of free use of the original work. Analysis of foreign judicial practice shows that in the absence of such an exemption, the only remedy against the claim of the copyright holder is a reference to the parodic nature of the result of processing. Meanwhile, courts are reluctant to extend the regime of parody to the appropriative art. American copyright law forms an exception that allows the court to use the transformative test within the framework of the fair use doctrine. According to the test, the use is considered fair if the author, as a result of processing pre-existing work, transformed it into his own artistic statement and (or) his own aesthetics. However, this approach has significant drawbacks, in particular, it directly forces the court to evaluate the artistic merits and significance of a derivative work. Thus, unlike parody, appropriation as an established and recognized art practice has not yet found a decent place within the framework of the institution of free use of the work.

Labor legislation prohibits unjustified refusal of employment and provides job seekers with the opportunity to judicial protection of the right to work. In the Russian justice system, such disputes are becoming widespread. However, the legal fact of unjustified refusal established by the court most often does not ensure that the applicant gets a job. The consequences of such a refusal are limited to compensation for moral damage in monetary form. The purpose of the paper is to critically evaluate judicial practice in this category of labor disputes. Methodologically, the author relies on the formal legal method, systemic methods, as well as the goalsetting method. The author carries out a comparative analysis of the guiding judicial practice of 1992 and 2004, as well as current rulings of the cassation courts of general jurisdiction in cases under study. The author explains the circumstances of unjustified refusals, qualifies unreasonable refusal as illegal. The paper elucidates the role of special safeguards in claims for forcing an employer to conclude an employment contract, provides doctrinal considerations regarding factors that do not allow the court to oblige the employer to hire an individual in all cases of recognition of refusal to conclude an employment contract as illegal. The author explains that in this state of affairs, the norms of Articles 16, 64 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation are not implemented and the goals of judicial protection of the rights of citizens who are wrongfully denied employment are not achieved. The author proposes clarification and addition of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, unifying court decisions on claims for concluding an employment contract. If the refusal is recognized as unreasonable, the courts in all cases must make decisions on the occurrence of an employment relationship and payment for the time of deprivation of the opportunity to work.

The paper examines the prospects for increasing the effectiveness of this measure. The study utilizes the data on the use of confiscation of property as another measure of criminal law in Russia, as well as foreign experience in the use of confiscation of property. The author notes the alarming fact that Article 104.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is applied in 60% of cases for crimes related to violation of the rules for handling narcotic drugs, psychotropic and potent substances; given the frequency of application of the measure under study, the absence of a significant desired effect is indicated. It is noted that the confiscation of property actually performs only a «protective» function and neglects the potential preventive component. There are several shortcomings pointed out in the paper. Article 104.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation specifies a closed list of crimes. The legislation restricts the possibility of confiscating property transferred by a convicted person to another person; it is only possible if the person knew that it was obtained as a result of criminal acts; the burden of proof of the illegality of the acquisition of property is placed on government bodies. The obstacles to the return of confiscation of property to the number of punishments are examined separately. These include the experience of using confiscation as another measure of a criminal legal nature that has developed over the past few years. Some more are the possibility of confiscating property for the benefit of the state in a civil-legal manner; the negative historical experience of using confiscation of property; the absence of clearly reliable and recognized data characterizing the preventive potential of confiscation as a punishment (especially in the context of the possibility of using confiscation of property as a punishment exclusively to the guilty person). Some attention is given to the issue of positive and negative features of the regulation of confiscation of property in sectoral legislation, as well as aspects of shifting the burden of proof of the legality of the acquisition of property.

The science of criminal law and forensic psychiatry do not draw clear boundaries between the biological criteria of sanity, limited sanity, and insanity. The paper is devoted to the consideration of the prospects for using modern achievements of neuroscience to clarify the boundaries of biological criteria of sanity, limited sanity, and insanity. The paper provides information on the current state of development of neuroscience in terms of research using neuroimaging methods of the brain of individuals committing criminal offenses. The feasibility of conducting relevant research in Russia is substantiated and an option for organizing such work in the form of a pilot project is proposed. In particular, it is proposed to create a single information database, which is supposed to reflect brief information about persons who have committed criminal acts, about the acts they are accused of, and the results of neuroimaging of the brains of these persons. Several stages of organizing work on collecting an empirical base to clarify the biological criteria of sanity, limited sanity, and insanity are identified and described. Particular attention is given to the issue of the legality of compulsory neuroimaging studies in relation to persons who have committed criminal offences.

The paper reviews the problems related to the assessment of criminal law significance of the psychoemotional states of an individual at the time of committing crimes.
An analysis of forensic practice and judicial statistics allowed the author to focus attention on the increase in both the total number of persons referred to forensic psychiatric examination and the number of identified insane and partially sane persons. This has made several issues more urgent. It is important for the court to consider if the guilty party is limited in sanity; when sentencing the guilty party, the nature of their behavior in the period immediately preceding the commission of the crime; the psycho-emotional state of the subject when implementing the principle of guilt in crimes committed negligently.
The problems that cause the greatest difficulties in law enforcement practice and disagreements in the doctrine of criminal law are identified. The most promising ways to solve them have been outlined. According to the author, the adoption by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of special explanation on the issues of considering criminally relevant psycho-emotional states should contribute to the removal of these problems. The document must, in particular, clearly spell out the options for considering the limited sanity of the perpetrator when assigning a sentence, as well as the nature of his behavior in the period immediately preceding the commission of the crime.
The author also advocates for expanding, at the legislative level, the grounds for recognizing an act as committed innocently.

The paper examines the features of the procedural order of statutory framework of the preliminary investigation conducted by the investigation group under the criminal procedure legislation of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. It has been determined that the statutory framework for the formation and activities of investigative groups in criminal proceedings of the Republic of Belarus is governed by the national criminal procedure law, which at the same time determines the grounds for assigning the conduct of a preliminary investigation to an investigative group, as well as the procedure for its activities. In addition, it has been established that the role of the prosecutor in the matter of procedural interaction with members of the investigative team in Belarusian criminal proceedings is significantly broader than in Russian criminal proceedings, where the competence and powers of the prosecutor in pre-trial proceedings are maximally limited. At the same time, the specifics of the formation of an investigative and operational group in criminal proceedings in the Republic of Belarus were determined.

The paper examines the limitations of personal rights in criminal proceedings, as well as the risks associated with the lack of compliance with security measures due to the unlawful disclosure of preliminary investigation data. During the research, scientific methods such as analysis, comparison, and expert assessment were used. The study resulted in the identification of significant problems in the current criminal procedure legislation of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan in the area of observing the personal rights of a person and citizen, as well as ensuring the confidentiality of criminal case materials. Among these are lack of differentiation of principles establishing inviolability in various spheres of life; lack of a clear mechanism and tools for ensuring confidentiality in criminal proceedings; the optional nature of Article 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, which determines the inadmissibility of disclosing preliminary investigation materials, etc. In studying these problems, possible ways and means of solving them were developed, such as: introducing a special chapter in the Criminal Procedure Code regulating issues of ensuring confidentiality in criminal proceedings; giving an imperative nature to Article 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation; differentiation of the principles of criminal procedure in accordance with various spheres of life.

Forensic expertology distinguishes between different types of use of special knowledge that are expressed in legal proceedings, each of which has its own characteristic features. Despite the problems associated with determining the type of forensic examination, the competence of the expert, etc., in general, an approach to checking and evaluating the conclusion of a forensic expert has been established. One of the important issues when conducting an assessment is checking the correctness of the methodology chosen by the expert, the compliance of the methods with the established criteria: scientificity, verifiability, accuracy, efficiency, safety and ethics. The methodology of various types (kinds) of forensic examinations is developed on a strictly scientific basis, using general theoretical achievements of forensic expertology and the theory of the relevant scientific field, such as linguistics, art history, etc. However, fairly new «forensic examinations» in the humanities have appeared in forensic investigative practice. Among them are cultural studies, religious studies, political science, ethics, etc. Most of these «examinations» are conducted without proper methodological support, with a high level of subjectivity, which cannot be hidden behind the very lengthy explanations given in the conclusion of forensic activities, which is especially evident in the absence of a research section in the conclusion of the forensic expert. In a number of cases, they try to justify the theoretical basis of such «examination» by a non-existent area of scientific knowledge.

The study notes that ESG standards formulated in the West have no scientific basis, serve as a tool for competitive struggle against Russian companies, and contradict traditional Russian values. The first ESG standard, based on the decarbonization of the economy, does not relate to the environmental protection objectives set by the President of Russia and poses a threat to such constitutionally significant values/national interests of the country as the sovereignty, security and defense capability of Russia. The content of the second Western ESG standard is incompatible with the principles of developing a healthy society. It includes gender perversions presented as new norms, poses a threat to national interests related to morality and public health, and contradicts the meaning of Russian policy defined by the President of Russia, which consists of saving people and increasing human capital as Russia’s main wealth. The third Western ESG standard, which contains a list of non-financial reporting issues related to companies’ disclosure of information on the Internet, poses a threat to such national interests as defense capability and security. Legal mechanisms for the protection of constitutionally significant values of Russia should be based on a system of incentives for Russian economic structures that ensure Russian national interests, through preferences of the Russian state, Russian investment companies and funds. Russia’s development can be sustainable only under conditions of an influx of all Russian resources, primarily gas and oil, which form the basis of the country’s economy. The development of Russia should be based on national/public interests of the Russian Federation as priorities/standards.

The paper analyzes the legal status of chaplains in the structure of parliaments of a number of foreign countries and the peculiarities of religious rites during parliamentary sessions. Several forms of religious presence in legislative activity are distinguished. Firstly, the practice of prayers at the beginning of plenary sessions and organizing other religious services; secondly, it is possible to have religious ministers — chaplains — constantly present during the work of the legislative body. It is noted that a full-fledged institution of chaplains exists only in the USA and Great Britain. The authors point out that chaplains do not have a significant influence on political decisions of members of parliament, since they perform more organizational functions, but they can influence public opinion during periods of important events in the country. The authors support their conclusions with examples from history and judicial practice devoted to the development of the institution of chaplains in the USA and Great Britain.