No 1 (2023)

Despite the existence of a sufficient number of scientific papers on the issues of legal personality, it is prematurely to consider this term developed and understandable, first of all, due to the lack of a scientifically based theoretical concept of legal personality. Based on the analysis of the doctrinal and legal definition of legal personality, the author shows the identified contradictions in the generally accepted understanding of this category, the essence of which is the lack of consistency with the established legal terms – a legal subject, legal status, legal capability, and legal capacity to act. Resolving the identified contradictions, the author comes to the conclusion about the exclusively branch-specific meaning of legal personality, justifying the illogicality of using the term “general legal personality”, and within the theoretical and legal analysis of criminal procedural legal personality, shows the existing relations and dependences between legal personality and legal categories that are close in content – a legal subject and a subject of legal relations, legal status, legal capability, and legal capacity to act. Using a systematic approach in the study of criminal procedural legal personality, the author step by step reveals the process of formation of legal personality, limiting the sphere of its application to law enforcement. Based on the results of the study, the author substantiates the necessity of distinguishing between the concepts of procedural legal personality, a legal subject, legal status, and a subject of legal relations, proposes the author’s definitions of these terms. An understanding of procedural legal personality as a legal property of a specified court procedure participant arising as a result of acquiring the status of a legal subject is formulated. In understanding a criminal procedure subject, the author substantiates two aspects: regulatory and law enforcement. In the regulatory aspect, a legal subject is a generalized, abstract person vested with procedural legal capability and legal capacity to act; in the law enforcement sphere, a legal subject acts as a specified person with procedural legal personality.

Understanding, development, and significance of state sovereignty in international and domestic relations are a constant and burning issue of scientific research. However, over the last years, there is a growing tendency in the foreign and Russian science aimed at the disavowal of the concept of the sovereignty as an inalienable, undivided, and absolute power of the state, which leads both to the scientific disputes and the growth of tension at the state-by-state (international) level. The abovementioned determined the goal of this work: the scientific substantiation of the sovereignty as the most important, enduring characteristic and the base attribute of a state, as well as the formation of the concept according to which state sovereignty should be considered as a political and legal axiom aimed at the creation of a modern secure world order. The understanding of state sovereignty developed over several centuries includes the ability of a state to form and implement an individual, independent, and integral foreign and domestic policy, which means the supremacy of the state in the domestic and foreign policy. However, there are significant disagreements in understanding the nature, scope, implementation mechanism, and other factors of the formation and development of state sovereignty. In the paper, the author attempts to comprehend the pluralism of views on the concept of state sovereignty and to identify the consequences of artificial reducing the authority of the state sovereignty concept, proposes the justification for the inadmissibility of its disavowal. The author concludes that the concept of state sovereignty is actually the most important property of any state and scarcely depends on the influence of external factors, i.e. the sovereignty of the state cannot be limited since this contradicts, first of all, to its essence, and the disparagement and appeals to the state sovereignty abolition are the most dangerous tendency significantly increasing the level of tension in the world. State sovereignty is a symbol, the ideological framework of the world order and the existence of any state.

The paper considers the problem of defining the concept and characteristic features of the constitutional and legal category “direct will of the people”, as well as its place in the corpus of terms of the domestic constitutional law science. The author substantiates a thesis about the synonymy of the terms “direct will of the people” and “direct democracy” and gives the definition of these concepts. The paper gives some signs of the direct democracy forms, which distinguish it from other related constitutional law institutions, as well as specific signs of its higher forms – a referendum and free elections. Separately, the extraordinary forms of direct democracy are considered – the all-Russian vote of 1993, through which the current Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted, and the all-Russian vote on the approval of the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020. The author analyzes the content of these constitutional and legal institutions, highlights their specific features. It is indicated that these institutions have a significant similarity with the federal referendum, but they have their own unique characteristics, which make such electoral procedures the most suitable for solving specific problems. The author concludes that the institutions of the direct will of the people take precedence over the institutions of representative people power, as well as about the dualism of the “direct will of the people” concept, which can be considered in two legal meanings: as a process or as a result of the implementation of the will of the people. It is stated that three components are the basis for the implementation of the direct will of the people: a subject of legal relations; the necessity of personal participation of citizens; the unity of the will of all citizens and the direct relationship of the decision made with the people’s will.