Том 22, № 2 (2025)

The subject of this study is the analysis of the nature of the interrelationship between the individual, society, and the state, as shaped by various legal frameworks and the characteristics of political regimes. The objective of the paper is to determine the significance of human capital and law as resources of state and social development, and to define the role of state coercion and violence in the regulation of social relations. The study employs historical, axiological, systemic-structural, sociological, and comparative legal methods, which allow for the comparison of diverse approaches to the understanding of law and provide justification for the Author's conclusions on the issue of state coercion, particularly in the area of combating crime through criminal law. A comprehensive and critical examination of human history – from antiquity to the present – reveals an unbroken sequence of social conflicts, civil strife, revolutions, and both world and local wars. The central resource in civilizational and state development has always been the human being. From its inception, the state has subordinated society and for millennia has employed violence to address both internal challenges (through law enforcement) and external ones (via the military). This subjugation has served both the rational public interest (as in the social contract theory, which seeks to prevent a “war of all against all”) and the private interests of economically dominant classes and groups (as posited in the theory of violence and the materialist theory of economic determinism). Throughout the history of human coexistence – up to the modern era, when the principles of the rule of law, the welfare state, civil society, and popular sovereignty have been enshrined in political practice – ruling elites have articulated the interests of individuals, social groups, and strata as national priorities. This quality of statehood has necessitated specific methods for regulating social relations, among which legal state coercion has held a significant position. Such coercion has often manifested in violent forms, and people have been treated as a renewable resource for the fulfillment of state functions. In the modern state – one that rejects destructive approaches in its relations with individuals and society – people are no longer seen as mere resources for task execution. Rather, they are regarded as capital, the quantitative and qualitative attributes of which – including health, education, intelligence, skills, and social well-being – serve as indicators of the state’s progressiveness. Under these conditions, the primary resource of the contemporary state is law itself: a force that safeguards fundamental values, the individual, and their rights from the harmful and destructive effects of narrowly defined economic, political, and ideological interests.

Objective. This study aims to demonstrate that the rejection of a normative understanding of law poses a primary threat to the rule of law. It further proposes a method for identifying the actual meaning attributed to legal provisions through established law enforcement practice – an approach that enables the development of strategies for protecting legitimate rights and interests. The research employs several methods/ Formal-dogmatic method: limiting the analysis to the legal texts under examination. Logical construction: deriving legal norms from statutory texts. Judicial analysis: examining court decisions to detect the presence or absence of statutorily prescribed facts. Synthesis: extracting the factual grounds for tax liability from judicial acts. Logical definition: applying formal logic to correlate case-specific circumstances described in judgments with legal facts defined in legislation. A case study of judicial practice in tax disputes illustrates the arbitrariness of legal enforcement, beginning with the disregard for establishing and proving formally defined elements of tax violations. The abandonment of a strict normative legal framework leads to a shift: lawful taxation degenerates into a mechanism for the state to extract unlawful revenues and suppress economic activity. This situation becomes particularly pressing in light of the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on February 29, 2024, where President Vladimir Putin emphasized the inadmissibility of violating the law in relation to entrepreneurs, stating: “They create jobs, employ people, and pay salaries.” Scientific Contribution. The study emphasizes the tangible harm caused by critiques of legal normativism. It offers a method for detecting jurisprudential distortions of statutory law, thereby facilitating the identification of strategies to defend legal rights Practical Significance: The research demonstrates how legal enforcement aligned with statutory norms can be supported through the use of the “LASER-IP-CPC-2020” computer program, when adapted to arbitral disputes. Given the lack of effective judicial protection for taxpayers during appeals against decisions by tax authorities, the study proposes mechanisms for protection through litigation in civil proceedings.

This article addresses the legitimacy of the principle of federalism within the institution of administrative liability. This principle is reflected in the distribution of powers and jurisdictions between the Russian Federation and its constituent entities concerning the establishment and enforcement of administrative liability measures. At the same time, the field of administrative legal science has raised legitimate concerns regarding the constitutional validity of this principle. The article presents various legal positions expressed by the highest courts of the Russian Federation, courts of general jurisdiction, and leading Russian scholars in administrative law on the matter. Several arguments are put forward in support of the constitutional legitimacy of federalism in the sphere of administrative liability. In particular, the article justifies the need to distinguish between the principles of federalism in the substantive and procedural aspects of administrative regulation. This distinction is necessary not only due to the fundamentally different content of each, but also because of the differing constitutional and legal foundations for their legitimacy. It is argued that the principle of federalism enjoys its most stable constitutional and legal footing in the procedural regulation of administrative liability – at least in the context of initiating administrative offense proceedings by officials of jurisdictional bodies in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The article further identifies certain inconsistencies in federal legislation, judicial practice, and administrative legal scholarship in the interpretation of the Constitutional Court's positions regarding the legitimacy of federalist principles in both the substantive and procedural domains of administrative liability. Conclusions are drawn regarding the recognition by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of the legitimacy of the broad, competing competence shared by the Russian Federation and its constituent entities in the field of administrative regulation. Furthermore, the article points to the likely existence of matters of joint jurisdiction in this domain – even if not explicitly named in the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. Elements of such joint competence can be inferred through interpretation of Articles 1.3 and 1.3.1 of the Code.