Vol 5, No 18 (2021)

We consider the political and legal doctrines of the Middle Ages, containing the principles and ideas that served as the basis for the pension legislation of European countries and Russia, passed in the following centuries. We reveal the special role of religious doctrines in the development of key approaches to social protection of the elderly and other disabled persons. We substantiate the conclusion that the development of a specific model for the protection of personal data depended on the peculiarities of understanding charity in Orthodoxy, Catholicism or Protestantism. We examine the views of Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on the social function of the state and its role in ensuring the basic needs of the individual. We analyze the doctrines of the utopian socialists of the 16th–17th centuries (T. Mora, T. Campanella, J. Winstanley, E.-G. Morelli), consider their main ideas regarding the provision of the elderly and other disabled persons. We substantiate the urgency of referring to the works of medieval philosophers at the present time in connection with the need to search for a new paradigm for the development of pension legislation. We conclude that the role of the principle of universal equal distribution of the social product is growing in the context of economic constraints and a pandemic.

Based on the positivist understanding of law principles, we analyze the legislation of the Russian Empire, which normatively enshrines the principles of civil procedural law. We substantiate the position that in the pre-revolutionary doctrine there were certain ideas about the principles of civil procedural legislation, however, a special analysis of normative acts with the aim of identifying them was not carried out. We highlight the features of pre-revolutionary scientists work – specialists in the field of civil procedural law, namely: theorization, reasoning about the principles of civil procedure “in general” as some universal ideas in isolation from the real analysis of the Charter of civil procedure, “inscribing” of Russian civil procedural law in the European context and as a consequence of this, the use of a wide range of foreign literature. Based on the analysis of the Charter of Civil Procedure of 1864 and the Nominative Decree given to the Senate “On the Establishment of Judicial Regulations and on the Judicial Charters” dated November 20, 1864, we substantiate and conclude that seven principles of civil procedural law were enshrined in the legislation of the Russian Empire: 1) principle of independence of judges; 2) principle of equality of all before the court; 3) adversarial principle; 4) principle of humanism; 5) principle of justice; 6) principle of publicity; 7) principle of speedy proceedings (principle of considering a case on the merits in no more than two instances).

Certainty in law is a category that is ambiguously perceived by the scientific legal community. We make an attempt to analyze the meaning and role of the category of certainty in the process of creating a stable legal system with historical continuity. On the example of the US and France legislation, we give polar examples of the implementation of certainty of lawprinciple. We conclude about the undoubted usefulness and necessity of preserving this principle in the Russian legal system. However, a study of the French experience of legal regulation has shown that the desire for certainty, achieved through an overly detailed regulation of public relations, only creates additional problems of interpretation and law enforcement, strengthening legal nihilism and citizens' distrust of law. At the same time, the American model, implying some uncertainty of law, has shown its effectiveness in its historical example. The ambiguity and framework nature of the American Constitution and basic federal laws makes it possible to interpret and concretize their provisions in judicial precedents in different ways, depending on the era and socio-political situation, which contributes to the flexibility and stability of the US legal system. In conclusion, it is noted that domestic legislators need to strive for a gradual transition to the American model of implementing the principle of certainty of law, while providing for detailed regulation of public relations at the level of bylaws. Such an approach will preserve the historical continuity and existence of basic normative acts for several decades, preserve the stability and predictability of legal regulation.

The work raises an issue of development and implementation of the Russian regional law-making policy in the direction of ensuring innovative activity. The Tambov Region is regarded as a region for scientific and practical generalizations, conclusions, and recommendations. Some lagging of the regional levels behind similar policies at the federal level, where a significant number of legislative acts regulating innovation relations have been adopted, is stated. The legislative prescriptions that determine the task of developing innovative relations for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, including through purposeful lawmaking in this direction, are indicated. It is proved that, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation have a sufficient number of powers to pursue a law-making and power-adminis-trative policy in the field of science, technology, innovation. The steps taken in the Tambov Region in this direction are assessed. Critical remarks and recommendations are expressed regarding the improvement of the law-making policy in the field of innovations in the territory of the Tambov Region.

We research the issue of the current law enforcement practice of considering cases of joint bankruptcy of spouses in the framework of insolvency procedures of individuals. We emphasize that at the legislative level, joint bankruptcy of spouses and multiple persons on the debtor’s side is not provided for. Initially, this resulted in a lack of courts’ uniform approach, which has become a subject of discussion in the scientific literature. In this context, we pay attention to the importance of adoption by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of position on the combining admissibility of spouses’ banknote cases. In turn, the permissibility of combining cases did not resolve the issue of possibility of accepting a joint bankruptcy application, which again led to discrepancies in judicial practice. Special attention is paid to the admissibility of combining cases, which is the right of the court, and not its duty. We note that the arbitration courts, when solving this issue, study such circumstances as the subject composition of the persons participating in the cases of debtors, the volume and nature of property that is part of the bankruptcy estate of each debtor’s property, the performance of duties of financial manager by the same person. Despite the developing judicial practice of joint bankruptcy of spouses, justified by the explanations of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, we believe that it expedient and necessary to establish the grounds, procedure and conditions for joint bankruptcy of individuals who are spouses at the legislative level.

In connection with the active development and use of assisted reproductive technologies, protection of the human embryo and its legal status issue is currently being actualized. We make an attempt to reveal and explain some of the international aspects of the criminal law protection of the life and rights of the embryo. We consider the concept of “embryo” not only from the point of view of various scientific approaches (medicine, biology, embryology, jurisprudence), but also from the legislative side. We present and analyze the first mention of the embryo in Roman private law in connection with modern domestic law. We carry out an analysis of international legal acts that provide protection of embryos both “in vitro” and “in vivo”, followed by consideration of specific criminal law norms of foreign countries, namely Brazil and Colombia. We pay attention to some of the most famous cases from the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in order to understand the applied international legal acts “de facto”. The study also takes into account modern domestic legislation and considers point “g” of part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The object of research is legal relations in the field of commercial arbitration. We consider the arbitration procedures for disputes, the subject of which is compensation for damage. Currently, forms of settlement of legal disputes that are alternative to state justice are popular, including commercial arbitration, which is becoming more widespread in the modern world, which is primarily associated with the development of economic turnover and business activity, as well as an increase in the volume of domestic and international economic connections. The relevance of the issues under research consists in the fact that the arbitration procedure of disputes in a strictly defined area related to compensation for damage is investigated as a means of protecting the rights and interests of subjects of economic turnover. We show that it is in principle possible to resolve these disputes through arbitration. The research results can be implemented in legislative work on improving legislation in the field of arbitration of disputes and regulation of issues of compensation for damage.

The phenomenon of security since the time of Plato, who identified it as one of the human needs, belongs to that rare group of phenomena that will remain in demand forever, regardless of the change of ideologies and eras. Only technologies and mechanisms for ensuring security are changing, which is facilitated by the tech-nological singularity, the accelerated progress of information and communication technologies. Nevertheless, the question remains open of what comes first: the security of human or state. Even in the Modern Era, after the terrible world wars, terrorist attacks, man-made disasters, the approaches to answering this question have changed many times. In connection with the above, the purpose of this work is to trace the development of philosophical thought on security issues, as well as to determine approaches to the modern understanding of this phenomenon, problems of meanings and values. Through the use of general logical, empirical and theoretical methods, an idea of new trends in the field of security is formed, which testify to the formation of the concept of human security.

The book by psychologist Sofia Nagornaya and lawyer Shamil Khaziev entitled “The duty of a lawyer and the ethics of a psychologist: mental (psychological) torture in the legal system of Russia” is devoted to the actual theme of psychological torture. This work is the first interdisciplinary development of this theme in Russia. The book consists of two parts. In the first part, entitled “The duty of a lawyer”, the authors draw attention to the relevance and current dynamics of the development of the general theme of the prohibition of torture, including psychological torture. The second part, entitled “Ethics of the psychologist (international experience)”, continues the development of the theme of psychological torture with the greatest interdisciplinary psychological bias. Special attention in this part is paid to the analysis of international experience in the fight against mental (psychological) torture.