The paper elucidates how the Criminal Code of 1903 regulated the protection of marriage, marriage celebration, family, childhood and other issues of family relations. The author demonstrates when and under what circumstances the concept of corpus delicti appeared in the domestic doctrine of criminal law and explains the essence of the concept. The paper provides a review of the composition of criminal acts committed against family rights under the Criminal Code of 1903 and presents their gradation by severity and classification by the object of encroachment. The author outlines the range of subjects of the criminal acts under consideration and describes the features of their status. Applying legal techniques, the author determines the peculiarity of the subjective side of the persons committing the acts under examination. In addition, the paper describes the forms and methods of committing criminal acts against family rights under the Criminal Code of 1903, analyzes the object of encroachments, discloses the peculiarities of the status of the victims. The resources summarized in the paper give аn idea of what, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the understanding of criminal law protection of the interests of the family and the rights of its members and family relations was, what acts seemed socially dangerous and to what extent.

Analysis of the issues of creating and applying machine-readable formats of legal documents is very relevant for national legal systems of many States. The experience of leading technological countries that are leaders in this area, namely: Germany, the USA, Japan, Brazil and a number of other countries, can be useful to the Russian Federation for the further implementation of the main provisions of the Concept for the Development of Machine-Readable Law Technologies developed in Russian Federation. Studying and understanding the processes of creating and subsequent application of machine-readable formats of legislative acts, acts of official interpretation, acts of implementation of law and law enforcement acts can significantly increase the level of automation of various types of legal activities, facilitate the solution of routine legal tasks, thereby increasing the effectiveness of legal regulation. The paper provides a comparative legal analysis of the development of technologies for machinereadable formats of legal documents in different countries, highlights the advantages, identifies the problems of creating and using such documents, the resolution of which can help improve these technologies in Russia. 

The diversity of forms of land ownership has led to the diversity of forms of public ownership, which traditionally include federal, regional and municipal land ownership. Meanwhile, the structure of public ownership of land includes not only these forms of ownership, since in the Russian Federation state ownership of land is not delimited. Consequently, there are a large number of land plots that are not private property and do not belong to the property of specific public legal entities. Nevertheless they are public property. Undivided lands are defined as a separate form of public ownership of land, with its own legal regime distinct from traditional forms of public ownership. In the process of managing them, a special role is assigned to local governments. It is proved that the powers to manage undivided lands are separate state powers transferred for execution to local authorities. The author analyzes the problem of agreements regulating the transfer of these powers from one municipality to another and the redistribution of these powers by the law of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. It is concluded that the federal law on the transfer of powers to local authorities for the disposal of land plots, state ownership of which is not delimited, does not comply with the requirements of the legislation on local self-government.

The author of the study has been developing the theory of the ratio between the subjects of constitutional law for a long time. The paper describes theoretical constructs, including the conceptual and categorical apparatus, methodology, and certain aspects that have been tested in practice in the process of expert activity. The essence of the theory lies in the fact that various actors with legal status influence on each other in many directions, not limited to legal relations, including states. The transformation of the realization of the right in recent years clearly demonstrates this statement. One of the components of doctrinal research is the consideration of various subjects through the prism of the variety of their relationships with other actors. In the work, the author makes an attempt of this kind of reflection in relation to civil society, which the author seems to be a full-fledged independent subject, and its institutions. At the same time, local self-government and state-public formations (public chambers, councils, public monitoring commissions, etc.) are not taken into account, since they are significantly influenced by the State. As a result, a set of author’s conclusions can be taken throughout the text of the work on the potential of individual subjects of constitutional law in terms of their involvement in public life. The application of the indicated positions may take place in the process of lawmaking, law enforcement, as well as for other doctrinal research on this or similar topics.

The paper examines the peculiarities of the legal status of the public authorities of the federal territory «Sirius» in the context of implementation of local self-government. The paper examines the modern model of the federal territory in the Russian Federation. The author provides his opinion regarding the issues under 

consideration, as well as the points of view of the scientific community in general. The correlation of the legal regulation of the implementation of local self-government within the boundaries of the federal territory and the principle of democracy is considered. The author focuses on the thesis stating a direct relationship between the public authorities of the federal territory «Sirius» and the local governments of the resort city of Sochi. The subjects of interaction between public authorities of the federal territory and local governments of the city of Sochi are shown. Legal uncertainty was noted in the context of the implementation of local self-government on the territory of the federal territory «Sirius» and the paper suggests ways to overcome these chllenges. It is proposed to consolidate the legal mechanism for the implementation of local self-government in federal territories in order to prevent the risk of limiting the principle of democracy in the future.

The paper examines the issues regarding the values enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation from the standpoint of constitutional axiology. There is a variety of approaches to understanding constitutional values, their structure and legal characteristics. The author considers the phenomenon of trust as a social and constitutional value. The author draws a conclusion about her own understanding of the legal essence of constitutional values, which is not reduced to an idea, installation, principle or norm. They are an expression of self-identification of the multinational people of the Russian Federation, establishing the constitutional system. Therefore, they are constitutional values in the absolute meaning of this concept, and they have the property of integrativeness. The consolidation of the value of trust in the preamble of the Constitution of the Russian Federation is of paramount importance for the approval of the new constitutional order, the activities of public authorities, relations between the authorities and society, and the interaction of civil society institutions. In a formal legal context, this involves the creation, on the basis of the law, of institutions, procedures, means of protecting rights that should be based on trust and should be effective. Trust as a constitutional value is a criterion for assessing the institutions of public authority and civil society, the activities of subjects of constitutional legal relations, primarily public authorities.

The paper is devoted to the study of legal regulation and the legal nature of non-verification measures of tax control. The author focuses his attention on the tendency to reduce field tax audits. Instead, the tax authorities carry out off-audit control measures to identify tax offenses. It is noted that tax legislation provides broad powers to tax authorities for the purpose of implementing tax control measures beyond the framework of tax audits. Law enforcement practice allows defining pre-verification analysis as a tax control measure. The paper emphasizes that the emerging law enforcement practice creates a number of significant problems related to balancing private and public interests within the framework of tax control, in particular, ensuring the right of taxpayers to protect the rights and legitimate interests. Based on the results of the analysis, the author concludes that the introduction of a risk-based approach to the control and supervisory activities of the tax authorities led to the creation of an out-of-audit form of tax control.

Examining Russia’s experience and the experience of some foreign countries, the paper considers ways to determine the services provided by foreign suppliers in electronic form that are subject to VAT, namely, establishing a common definition of services in electronic form, fixing their specific list, a combination of these two options. The paper analyzes in detail the specific lists of services classified as electronic services (positive lists) and lists of services excluded from the list of services in electronic form (negative lists) used in a number of countries. Based on the results of the study, the author concludes about the impossibility of forming an exhaustive list of services in electronic form (due to their diversity, the rapid development of technologies in the field of electronic commerce, the potential increase in the number of tax disputes, the disparity of services in electronic form in different countries), as well as the preference for consolidating the legislation a common definition of electronic services and their open indicative list.

The paper analyzes the legal norms and theoretical sources that define the concept of «a decent burial». The author draws attention to the fact that a decent burial is a multifaceted evaluation category. The criteria for assessing the «decency» of a burial depend not so much on the costs, social status and financial situation that the deceased had during his lifetime, but on various social, religious, ethical, psychological and other factors that have no monetary expression. During his lifetime, an individual can express his will regarding how his burial should be held, and (or) allocate a certain amount of money for the ritual that should be excluded from the hereditary estate. According to the author, in order to ensure the enforcement of the will expressed by an individual during his lifetime and to ensure the safety of the funds allocated by him for his burial, it is necessary to use the options provided for by a notary, in particular, notarization of an individual’s order to hold his burial (as an independent document) and a notary’s deposit.

The article analyzes the possibility of application of Article 333 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation to a settlement agreement approved by a commercial (arbitrazh procedure) court. A settlement agreement may act as a procedural method of implementing the right of a party to an agreement to exempt the counterparty from liability and at the same time contains liability measures in the event of a violation of its terms. Taking into account the transactional nature of the settlement agreement, the inclusion of a condition on the payment of a penalty for failure to comply with the payment schedule is justified. An analysis of judicial practice on application of Article 333 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation to a party’s violation of the terms of a settlement agreement indicates its heterogeneity. There is a difference of opinion in the scientific literature on the norm of Article 333 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which allows the court to reduce the amount of the penalty. The application of Article 333 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on the reduction of penalties to an already concluded settlement agreement, which contained an exemption from liability of the debtor for failure to pay on time for delivered goods, completed work or rendered services, allowed the authors to conclude that there was a «double» exemption from liability. A settlement agreement is an agreed expression of the will of its parties; therefore, the commercial (arbitrazh procedure) court does not have the right to actually change the terms of the settlement agreement. The terms of the settlement agreement may be changed only as a result of an appeal of the judicial act by which it was approved.

The paper is devoted to the study of the balance between the implementation of the principles of discretion and judicial supervision of the procedure based on the case of the collection of penalties (fines) and interest for the use of other people’s money. The paper examines the problems of implementing the principles of procedural effectiveness and procedural efficiency that arise when observing the requirements for the implementation of the principle of competition, the need for which arises when the claimant’s discretion is demonstrated. It is concluded that due to the nature of the penalty, there is no direct need for the claimant to indicate the continuing nature of the penalty, since the requirement to accrue the penalty (interest for the use of other people’s money) until the day of actual fulfillment of the obligation follows from the nature of this institution and the contractual structures accepted in business. The necessity of mandatory collection of a failure-to-pay penalty by the court with an indication of this in the operative part of the decision, unless otherwise provided by law, by contract, or unless otherwise stated by the claimant, is also substantiated. The conclusion is made about the need to increase the degree of implementation of the principle of judicial supervision of the procedure when resolving the issue of assigning a failure-to-pay penalty for the purpose of procedural efficiency and increasing the efficiency of the administration of justice.

The paper is devoted to legal issues and peculiarities of calculating the period of suspicion in relation to paragraph 2 of Article 61.2 of the Federal Law of 26.10.2002 No. 127-FZ «On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)». Despite the fact that the institution of competitive challenge is a popular subject matter of scientific research and law enforcement improvement, one aspect of the topic remains virtually unaddressed and concerns approaches to calculating the period for challenging the debtor’s transactions. Meanwhile, changing the settings of legal regulation on a seemingly inconspicuous aspect could resolve a number of related problems in the declared area. The author studies the provisions of the Russian Federation legislation, law enforcement features of determining the period for challenging transactions, the historical context, foreign experience, as well as the current practice of the Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation for economic disputes on the issue raised, identifies a serious imbalance between the legal norm and the practice of its application, and suggests ways to solve the identified problems.

The paper analyzes the regulation of the prosecutor’s powers in the field of criminal proceedings in the legislation of a number of foreign countries. A comparison is made with the powers of the prosecutor in Russian criminal procedure legislation. It is noted that in the overwhelming majority of foreign countries the prosecutor is vested with a greater range of powers. According to Russian criminal procedure legislation, the prosecutor, having a large volume of powers in the conduct of a pre-trial investigation in the form of an inquiry, has a much smaller volume of powers in the conduct of a preliminary investigation, which, in the author’s opinion, is a shortcoming of the Russian criminal procedure law that requires elimination. The author concludes that in order to increase the efficiency of the prosecutor’s supervisory activities in the area of criminal proceedings, it seems quite reasonable to return to the prosecutor some of the powers lost after the 2007 reform, including those related to the initiation of criminal proceedings.

Safeguarding the rights of participants in criminal proceedings is of particular importance and is characterized by a very impressive number of means used. The leading place among them is occupied by the criminal procedural form. In recent years, the criminal procedure form has undergone significant changes. In an effort to create an effective system for the protection of rights and freedoms, the legislator has expanded the scope of legal regulation of certain criminal procedural legal relations, which is due, among other things, to the accelerated development of society, leading to the emergence of new relations requiring criminal procedural regulation, as well as the objectively growing need to change criminal procedural relations. At the same time, a tendency towards differentiation appears and develops. In this regard, the question of the causes and objectivity of the development of differentiated forms becomes particularly relevant. The author puts forward a hypothesis about the impact of the idea of individualization on the criminal procedural form. The position is substantiated according to which individualization is capable of ensuring a regular, rather than chaotic, development of differentiation of forms and thereby creating an effective system of means for safeguards of the rights of participants in criminal proceedings. 

In the paper, the authors analyze the 2020 judicial reform related to constitutional (charter) justice in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. This reform had one single goal: to replace constitutional (charter) courts with constitutional (charter) councils operating under the legislative bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The authors approached the consideration of the 2020 judicial reform from a critical position. The paper provides a general analysis of the legal status of constitutional (charter) councils of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and identifies gaps in federal legislation. One of the main shortcomings of the Federal Constitutional Law of 08.12.2020 No. 7-FKZ «On Amendments to Certain Federal Constitutional Laws» is that the federal legislator introduced a dispositive norm on the establishment of new constitutional control bodies, aggravating it with an unclear legal status, thus failing to make the constituent entities of the Russian Federation willing to establish such. The authors focused their attention on the development of constitutional justice in the Republic of Tatarstan, tracing the path of its formation from the Constitutional Supervision Committee of the Republic of Tatarstan, established in 1990, to the Constitutional Council of Tatarstan, created in 2023. Despite the fact that the federal legislator has linked constitutional (charter) councils to legislative (representative) authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the Constitutional Council of the Republic of Tatarstan appears as a separate state body. Based on the study, problems of the legal status of constitutional (charter) councils of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation were identified: first of all, their position in the system of state authorities and the legal force of decisions. The combination of problems significantly reduces the effectiveness of the activities of the new constitutional (charter) justice bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in protecting constitutional legality.

The paper addresses one of the most controversial privileges in the legal field — the clergy privilege. Despite on-and-off attempts to level out the «seal of secrecy», it is enshrined in the laws of most countries as a guarantee of freedom of religion. The presence of specific features allows it to be considered as a separate type of privilege. A comparative legal analysis of the legal regulation of this type of secret in Russian law and the law of foreign countries is carried out. Despite terminological differences, the clergy privilege is protected through the witness immunity of clergy in the procedural sphere. The result of the study was the identification of problem areas in the legal regulation of the clergy privilege, and the formation of a number of proposals for the transformation of Russian legislation in this area.

The aim of the paper is to explore the functions of academic freedom as an instrument of democracy. The author analyzes the features of the Soviet and Russian legal systems in terms of ensuring academic freedom, determines the potential of academic freedom in the political and legal sphere, and shows the role of academic freedom in scientific, educational and research activities in the field of law. In the study, the following methods were used: systemic-structural, historical, comparative-legal, formal-legal. The works of A.Ya. Vyshinsky, V.I. Lenin, S.B. Polyakov and other authors were studied. The paper shows the influence of academic freedom on the formation of the professional worldview of actors creating the political and legal space of the state. The special function of lawyers as a «qualified defender of justice and constitutional values» is defined. In conclusion, a list of measures is provided which, in the author’s opinion, can influence the progress of scientific, educational and research activities in Russia.