Changing the social image of financial law at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries

The consolidation of the Russian state as a social state in the Constitution of the Russian Federation required significant changes both in the system of domestic law and in the system of its individual branches. One of the leading industries that bore a significant “burden” to implement the corresponding transformation is financial law, which by that time, as scientists put it, occupied a “modest place” among other industries. The fulfillment of the assigned mission significantly contributed to changing not only the content, but also the role of financial law in the life of society, the state, and the individual. In essence, the social appearance of financial law has changed, which, although it should be social at its core, is not always clearly socially “coloured”. In this regard, the purpose of this study, based on the thesis about the change in the social image of financial law at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, is to argue for the presence of a social vector in the development of this branch of law as one of the special branches of the Russian legal system. Using historical, logical methods, as well as methods of comparative legal research and system analysis, the basic prerequisites and conditions for the corresponding transformation, as well as its features, are identified using the example of individual sub-sectors and institutions of financial law. The thesis about the implementation in the norms of financial law of the state’s targets for the implementation of plans and forecasts of socio-economic development is substantiated, it is proven that not only traditional financial and legal institutions (budgetary and legal, tax and legal) are involved in the implementation of the social tasks of the state, but also other (institutions of public banking law, money issue). The current financial legislation and individual acts of strategic planning are analyzed, which made it possible to argue the hypothesis that in the last three decades the social appearance of financial law has changed significantly: not only the socialization of financial law itself has occurred (external aspect), but its content has also changed, including changes the composition of its principles, system, subjects (intra-industry aspect).