The article explores the current understanding of the conceptual foundations of Russian Law in the context of possibility of overcoming the values-worldview dichotomy according to the determinations of axiology, logic and pragmatics of the foundations under consideration. Also, the author considers John Rawls’ Theory of Justice taken as the most influential political and legal philosophy of the West, as well as its alternative represented by Eurasian philosophical thought. The article analyzes the ability of the Eurasian understanding of the State and Law to compete with liberalism and John Rawls’ neoconstructivism. Narrowness of both the first and the second alternative is shown and the necessity of taking into account each of the vectors of development of conceptual foundations of modern Russian Law is substantiated.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the category of a wrongdoing within the psychological theory of law on the example of the works of outstanding Russian thinkers, namely: Lev (Leon) Iosifovich Petrazhitskiy and Veniamin Mikhailovich Khvostov. The author analyzes the interrelation between morality and law in the context of consequences of their violations that are reflected in ethical experiences, relapses of ethical processes and their perception by others. The author investigates laws of psychology that distinguish law from morality and forms of their manifestations. The paper analyzes and examines the definition of a wrongdoing given by Veniamin M. Khvostov and describes its signs: an act, wrongfulness, competency of the wrongdoer. The author analyzes the views of the researcher concerning subjective and objective elements of the wrongdoing and their forms by comparing with the legislative norms that were in force at that time of the Criminal Code adopted on March 22, 1903. To sum up, the author has made conclusions on the ground of the analysis of issues under consideration.

The problem of suicide is a significant socio-economic problem for any modern society. At the present time, the situation in the Russian Federation is very complex and suicidal. Despite decline in recent years, suicide rates remain high. This phenomenon is predetermined by socio — economic factors. However, suicide should be examined as a result of such factors as direct mental and physical pressure put by the third parties on victims. Criminal Law of the Russian Federation treats the factors in question as signs characterizing the crime of deprivation of life. Therefore, criminal and legal measures play an important role in combating this extremely dangerous phenomenon. During different periods different approaches have been used to criminalize and construct the elements of the crime of bringing to suicide or attempt to commit suicide. The paper investigates the genesis, evolution and current state of criminal law regulation of responsibility for bringing to suicide or attempt to commit suicide in the criminal legislation of Russia. The author makes proposals for improving the regulation of the phenomenon in question.

The modernization of democratic institutions has been greatly influenced by the intensive development of technology. Various innovations in the field of digital communications have affected a rather traditional sphere of popular votings. The widespread introduction of the distributed ledger technology has enormously changed approaches to organizing them. Distributed registers gained the widest popularity after the technology of the chain of blocks (blockchain) was introduced. Despite the fact that initially this technology was considered exclusively as an element of the development of information, and later financial technologies, at the present stage it is gradually becoming increasingly common in other areas of human activity due to a high degree of security and confidentiality. The paper deals in detail with the world practice concerning using this technology in popular voting. Also, the author analizes the technical solutions applied in the most actively developing projects aimed at developing a software used to conduct electronic voting with the use of blockchain technology. The article investigates some problems of voting with the use of blockchain technology, such as identification and secrecy of the vote.

The paper proposes the author’s understanding of responsibility of members of political parties provided by the political parties’ constitutions and other intraparty documents (intraparty responsibility). Also, the paper demarcates intraparty responsibility, legal and other types of social responsibility. It is concluded that the responsibility of members of political parties is a subspecies of social and statutory responsibility. The study has determined the tendency of convergence (diffusion) of internal party and legal responsibilities; the analysis has been carried out concerning perspectives of treating the responsibility of members of political parties as positive; the author substantiates the conclusion about the need to study intraparty responsibility exclusively in retrospective aspect. The author elucidates the thesis concerning expediency of enforcement of intra-party penalties as the subject matter of responsibility of members of political parties. Also, the basic properties of intra-party responsibility are revealed and analyzed. The study has investigated the influence of ambivalent nature of political parties and peculiarities of intra-party relations regarding the properties of responsibility of members of political parties.

The paper has investigated the human rights activities of the State authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the context of small indigenous peoples as persons having constitutional and legal status and a higher level of guarantees than ordinary citizens have because of their paucity. The author questions the independence of local laws from the State authorities of the constituent entities of Russian Federation using comparative analysis of regional laws of the Republics of Buryatia, Sakha (Yakutia), Kamchatka and Krasnoyarsk Regions with regard to appointment of ombudsmen to their offices, remuneration and financial support from regional budgets. The circumstances under consideration together with the lack of uniform approaches to the scope and nature of the functional instruments of authorized persons have served as the basis for the development of recommendations to coordinate their activities, to adjust the legal framework of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in terms of requirements for applicants, and the scope of powers assigned to enforce human rights potential that are of practical importance and can be used by the authorities in in their rule-making work.

The article is devoted to examination and analysis of arbitration cases connected with the process of appealing acts of the Office of Rospotrebnadzor in the city of Moscow due to the administrative responsibility of one of the well-known retail organizations for including conditions infringing the rights and legitimate interests of consumers in the consumer agreement when distributing gift certificates (cards). The article contains excerpts from judicial acts issued during the consideration of cases, carries out detailed examination of issues related to the legal qualification of the gift certificate sold by entrepreneurs to consumers, and provides the author’s comment on possible ways of regulation when considering actually developing relations between retailers and consumers when they are making a contract, where the object is a gift certificate (card).

The article investigates the economic and legal transformation in the direction of participatory interaction of entrepreneurship with state institutions. The author analyzes peculiarities and determines target and functional burdens of the administrative and legal regime regulating the activity of economic entities under the conditions of market competition. The author proposes to expand the differentiation of directions of administrative and legal regime in relation to the type of economic relations between economic entities on the basis of systematization of principles of administrative and legal regulation of entrepreneurship into strategic, tactical, and forward-current. The paper investigates participatory management as a special administrative and legal regime of entrepreneurial activity implemented by means of two forms: public — private partnership and co — regulation. Such an approach to the consideration of participatory management has allowed the author to clarify the concept of “co-regulation” using it as a form of participatory management implementation. The research presented is intended for undergraduates, postgraduate students, government bodies and other persons whose scientific interests are concentrated in the field of administrative and legal regulation of the business community.

The paper analyzes The Law on Estimating Activities in various editions, as well as the dynamics of its development and improvement in the context of participants of estimating activity. The author carries out the comparative legal analysis of various articles of the Law under consideration; theoretical works devoted to legal regulation of participants of estimating activity are investigated. Certain proposals are made aimed at improving the normative legal regulation of participants of evaluation activity. In particular, it is noted that the structure of legal relations presupposes the existence of correlative rights and obligations, since law is a measure of the due, and a duty is a measure of possible behavior. In view of this, the legislative consolidation of the rights and obligations of estimators should be in a logical relationship, and not arbitrary and theoretically unreasonable.

The paper investigates normative-legal concepts of final and intermediate court decisions in criminal proceedings. Having carried out verbal and semantic and subject-content analysis of these definitions, the author reveals their drawbacks in terms of the terminology used and fictiousness in terms in the context of their subject matter. It is stated that the concept of an interim court decisions includes heterogeneous judicial acts fundamentally different in their nature and purpose. On the basis of the provisions of the theory of differentiation of criminal proceedings and the application of the method of systemic and structural analysis of the procedural activity of the criminal court, it is concluded that judicial acts and the final decisions of higher courts have common characteristics of final court decisions and should not be classified as interim, i.e. auxiliary. It is proposed to limit the concept of an interim judgment to a set of preparatory decisions, decisions to enforce and organizational decisions taken by the court in the course of preparation and conduct of a trial in any criminal proceedings.

The article is devoted to the problem of improvement of the procedure of application of compulsory educational measures in criminal proceedings against minors. The lack of proper regulation of the procedure for the application of compulsory educational measures and the existing legislative gaps determine the need for amendments and additions to the criminal law and criminal procedure law. It is proposed to grant the right to resolve the issue of termination of criminal prosecution and initiation of a petition for the application of a coercive measure of educational impact before the court to the prosecutor dealing with the criminal case brought before him with conviction or indictment. In order to resolve the question of the possibility of rehabilitating a minor through the use of compulsory educational measures, it is necessary to study his psyche using the specialized knowledge, which presupposes an expert opinion in the case. Exemption from criminal liability of minors under the rules of Article 90 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should be treated as the duty rather than the right of the law enforcement agent. Approaches to the solution of the problem connected with execution of compulsory measures of educational impact have been formulated.

The paper discusses the promising trends of a preliminary study of a person’s appearance captured using video recording devices. A characteristic of the preliminary study of the portrait data storage device seized during the inspection of the accident location is a sequential study of their external characteristics and internal content in order to further solve diagnostic problems aimed at establishing the characteristics of the surveying, image quality, and lack of signs of changing the initial content of the video or photo image. To date, the possibility of diagnosing human characteristics by age, physique, clothing, and manner of walking is being studied. According to the results of the analysis of scientific literature and practical activities of experts, it can be concluded that it is necessary to improve the methodology of portrait examination by including computer technologies for studying surveying parameters and signs of possible interference with the recording integrity. At the same time, to effectively identify the characteristics and states of people’s appearance transmitted by means of modern storage devices of portrait images, it is important that a team of experts conduct a comprehensive study of the images taking into account the knowledge in anatomy, anthropology, forensic medicine, computer technology, mathematical modeling, etc.

The paper is devoted to the review of the most serious problems arising in the performance of judicial financial and economic examinations in cases of intentional bankruptcy of legal entities. The author considers the main regulatory acts that guide the conduct of expert studies in the framework of judicial financial and economic examinations in cases of intentional bankruptcy. Attention is given to the lack of a single expert opinion regarding the choice of methods for financial analysis of the activities of legal entities during judicial economic examinations. The author notes that today there is no single terminological apparatus, including in the understanding of such a category as “signs of intentional bankruptcy of an organization”. An urgent issue is being raised related to the need to formulate a list of regulatory financial ratios, focusing on the specifics of the type of activity of a legal entity. It is concluded that it is necessary to solve a number of these problems in order to improve the quality of investigation and consideration of cases in legal proceedings.

The term “unique scientific installation of the mega-science class” has firmly entered the circulation of legal acts of a program nature, which makes it necessary to study it from a legal point of view, to determine the relationship of this concept with the widely recognized term “global research infrastructure”. Based on the analysis of legal acts, program documents and doctrinal sources, two key features of “unique scientific installations of the mega-science class” can be distinguished: large scale (physical, financial, technological) and special significance for science, which allows for a certain breakthrough in a particular field of knowledge. The study of the essence of global research infrastructures suggests the following definition. It is constructed and operated through international cooperation (collaboration) of states, international organizations and other actors that do not have an international legal personality (government agencies, scientific institutions, funding institutions), physically large, expensive, unique in terms of technical characteristics equipment sets intended for long-term scientific research aimed at obtaining new breakthrough knowledge, significantly supplementing or changing ideas about the reality. Domestic term “unique scientific installation of “mega-science” (international) class” has the longest match with such global research infrastructure as geographically localized (single-sited) major research infrastructure. In order to bring legal terminology on “mega-science” into line with the global one, amendments should be made to the draft federal law “On Scientific, Scientific and Technical and Innovative Activities”.

Since the end of the 20th century in Europe, there has been a tendency to accumulate scientific knowledge, increase the level of competitiveness of European research and the mobility of scientists themselves. The goals and objectives set by the European Union are realized through the creation of a single European research area and the implementation of special framework programs. It is determined that today the European Union is one of the world leaders in research and innovation. It is scientific knowledge, experience, high standards of research, developed research infrastructure that guarantee many years of successful cooperation between the EU and other countries. Contacts between Russia and the EU in the field of scientific and technical cooperation are developing quite actively. Both in the EU and in Russia, the development of effective innovation policies and programs is important for the development of a knowledge-based economy and an increase in the efficiency of investments in research and development.

The paper notes that the conceptualization of the basic concepts related to precarious employment and the adoption of norms and legal acts adequate to these relations in the system of labor legislation of the states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are at the preparatory stages. In the paper, the features of the manifestation of precarious employment in the labor legislation of the EAEU countries are analyzed by the example of norms on a fixed-term labor contract taking into account international labor standards. The labor legislation of the EAEU countries shows a tendency to expand the scope of fixed-term employment contracts, including towards lowering the level of legal guarantees for workers (Article 41 of the Labor Code of Belarus, Article 30 of the Labor Code of Kazakhstan, Article 82 of the Labor Code of Kyrgyzstan, Article 348.12 of the Labor Code of Russia), which contradicts the rules of ILO Recommendation No. 166 on the termination of labor relations on the initiative of the employer (Article 3) and the fundamental Convention No. 105 on the abolition of forced labor (Article 1), ratified by all states of the Eurasian Economic Union. In the paper, in the context of the development of precarious employment, the problems of the influence of norms of a different sectoral affiliation on the world of work are analyzed (by the example of Kyrgyzstan). It is noted, in particular, that the practice of applying the patent system to regulate the world of work does not contribute to resolving the issues of legalization of labor relations, and the tax authorities are not motivated to prove the existence of labor rather than civil law relations, even when they meet the criteria set forth in the ILO Recommendation No. 198 on labor relations and in Art. 13 of the Labor Code of Kyrgyzstan. The conclusion is formulated in relation to the restrictions of the labor inspectorates established by the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic dated May 25, 2007 No. 72 and by the Decree of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic dated December 17, 2018 No. 586 as contrary to the ILO priority Convention No. 81 on labor inspection in industry and trade (Part 1 of Article 12) ratified by Kyrgyzstan. Serious inconsistencies of measures to deregulate administrative responsibility to the tasks of the labor legislation of Kyrgyzstan to counteract precarious employment are identified.

The paper is a review of the case law of the United States of America, Canada and Australia, in which an attempt is made to answer the question on possibility of human gene patenting. The paper substantiates the relevance of this issue, examines the ethical aspects of gene patenting. The author analyzes the landmark and most significant cases from the point of view of the development of patent law of foreign countries: Diamond v. Chakrabarty (USA), Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (USA), Myriad v. Cancer Voices (Australia), The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) v. Transgenomic (Canada). In the analysis, the author gives special attention to the arguments and conclusions of judicial institutions regarding the patentability of human genes. A conclusion is drawn regarding the continuity and possible harmonization of legislation and judicial practices of both the states mentioned in the paper and countries that have just embarked on the development of biomedical technologies.

The paper discusses various legislative and enforcement approaches in the Russian Federation, USA, and Great Britain; compares the various provisions of the Plenums of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on issues of good faith; analyzes the application of these provisions by the courts when considering issues of holding directors to account as a result of malpractice that entailed property damage. By the example of consideration of a number of key cases from the law enforcement practice of the courts of the Anglo-American system of law, the question of the use of tests is considered: objective and subjective integrity tests to regulate the issue of holding the executive body accountable. English and American courts resort to the criterion of good faith in very rare cases, and the fiduciary duty of directors in commercial companies was significantly limited. The approach used by the common law courts implies a minimal degree of court interference in the economic affairs of commercial companies. Holding the director accountable is allowed only in case of obvious neglect of duties or is considered in some cases based on the specific circumstances of the case. Russian courts often hold directors accountable not as a result of gross negligence or proven intentional actions by executive bodies to harm the company, but as a result of society not achieving the desired economic result. Besides, dishonesty compensates for obvious gaps in the internal corporate routine, which do not make it possible to precisely determine the boundaries of authority and the area of responsibility of the executive body. The author formulates a conclusion on the degree of admissible judicial discretion when applying the provisions on good faith to corporate relations as requiring special regulation.

The paper discusses the problems associated with the state-owned real estate disposal. Two groups of objects that have the features of disposition and disposal are distinguished: objects whose disposition and disposal occur in a general manner after removal of their special status (cultural heritage objects, protective structures), and objects whose disposition and disposal are regulated by special legislation in connection with the special purpose of such objects (housing, subsoil use, water transport). Features of the disposal of such facilities, in particular the need to remove special status prior to the disposal of the facilities, are considered. The problem of registration of rights to land plots under objects that are subject to demolition or are virtually absent is considered. It is concluded that it is necessary to improve the legislation regarding the disposal of facilities, including the development of a procedure for the sale of materials resulting from the demolition of capital construction facilities.

The pre-emptive right to purchase and sell agricultural land by the authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the maximum size of agricultural land plots, the allocation of shares among rural residents and some other features of agricultural legislation are restrictions on the realization of the right of rural residents to own land. The lack of adequate infrastructure in rural areas, especially in the Far East that fall under the Far Eastern Hectare project, is also seen as an obstacle for rural residents to exercise their right to land.

The paper reflects the scientific discussions held at the VI Moscow Legal Forum on the 100th anniversary of the International Labor Organization, international legal regulation of labor and social security, the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on the development of labor law and social security law, manifestations of legal traditions and innovations in the field labor and social security.