No 3 (2019)

He paper deals with the analysis of part 3 of Article 20.1 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation passed on March 18, 2019, and called as a legislative ban on the offense of power. The result of the practical application of this law is disputable and not meeting the goal it was enacted for. Therefore, the author offers the following thesis: the provisions of part 3 of Article 20.1 of the RF AOC does not conform with the norms of international law, in particular the Declaration on Freedom of Political Discussion in the Media, adopted on February 12, 2004 at the 872-th meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the RF Constitution as well. The paper analyzes current legal provisions of legislation related to the mechanisms of protection of honor, dignity and business reputation depending on a subject in respect of which these rights were violated. The author carries out the analysis of special aspects of the legal protection of these rights of public persons and public officers in the relation of norms of international law, the RF Constitution and the RF Civil Code. The author considers the issue of conformity of these changes with the principles of freedom of speech, political discussion, and the established norms of international law. As a result of the study, the author concludes about the negative impact of application of part 3 of Article 20.1 of the RF AOC, for example, about the fact that the privileges of public and municipal authorities expanded, the additional mechanisms of protection of their honor, dignity and business reputation contrary to other people appeared, what, to the author’s opinion, is the development of a democratic state and civil society.

The paper proves the necessity of introduction of the concept of “criminal offense” into Russian criminal legislation, describes the possible procedural form of proceedings in criminal cases falling under the category of “criminal offense” - an inquiry in the reduced form, as well as the legal procedure of consideration of such cases. Draft amendments to the RF Criminal Code, namely, in part 2 of Art. 15 are submitted to the RF State Duma; they suggest recognizing minor crimes, not providing for the punishment in the form of imprisonment, as a criminal infraction. Up to now, this draft raises many questions as the legislator has not appropriately proved the importance and timeliness of introduction of such concept, has not specified in what procedural form the proceedings in criminal cases of specified category will be conducted, implying that it can be carried out in the form of simple or reduced inquiry, as well as has not specified legal procedure of their consideration. However, if the use of a simple inquest when investigating criminal cases of this category is in no doubt, the use of the reduced form of the inquiry on crimes recognized as a criminal offense is questionable. Appealing to the history of Russian criminal legislation and current European criminal law, the author proves the conclusion that the introduction of the concept of “criminal offense” is urgent and necessary and suggests validating such procedural form of proceedings on specified criminal cases, formerly existed in the criminal procedure legislation of the RSFSR and the RF and existing in the European criminal procedure, as a protocol form of investigative actions, as well as accepting the legal procedure of their consideration, taking the experience of Belarus and Kazakhstan as a model.

To determine the criteria of distinguishing the elements of the structure of legal responsibility, the author considered the structure of legal responsibility as an integral phenomenon. The structure of legal responsibility in a general way can be presented as a conglomerate of closely bound elements. The authors studied the criteria by which it is possible to structure legal liability. The analysis of various theoretical concepts and opinions of scientists showed the ambiguity of the approach to the quantitative and qualitative criteria to identify the elements of the structure of legal responsibility. The lack of the system approach is typical for all the criteria of distinguishing the elements of the structure of legal responsibility listed during the research. It is possible to solve this problem using a branch criterion. As a result of the research, the authors concluded that it is the most reasonable to use branch criterion to distinguish the elements of legal responsibility as it allows revealing the points of interaction and crossing of various manifestations of such diverse phenomenon as a legal responsibility. As the structural elements of legal responsibility, it is necessary to consider the legal responsibility subsystem formed by certain types of legal responsibility; the elements of system which are the subtypes of legal responsibility; the norms of legal responsibility representing the body of laws governing the public relations within the subsystem or an element of the legal responsibility system and defining the rules of conduct, principles, purposes, tasks, and definitions of a separate type of legal responsibility.

The paper considers the problem of definition of the concept of unauthorized construction, describes the relevance of the problem of the declaration of ownership for an illegally constructed building based on the court decision. The author analyzes the main changes in the civil legal regulation in the sphere of unauthorized structures: the issue of their demolition and legalization under certain conditions established by the legislator. The author studies the innovations in the field of objects - unauthorized buildings and the subjects dealing with unauthorized construction. The paper presents possible improvements in legislation in this area. The construction of an authorized building causes an offense, and this building is a result of the offense. However, deep analysis reveals the problem ambiguity. Since the abovementioned process implies both civil and public offenses, legal solutions to the issues of building preservation, in particular, related to the creation of property right for it or the building’s destruction as a physical object, are formed taking into account both civil and public behavior of the parties to the legal relationships arising in regard to an authorized structure. Based on the study of scholarly opinions, the author comes to the understanding of the unauthorized building as a civil offense since unauthorized construction is illegal activities on creation of a real estate object; however, it is legally recognized as the way of acquisition of the right of ownership. The author concludes that the specifics of the legal regime related to unauthorized construction aimed to ensure economic relations; however, this regime should not generate sustainable patterns of illegal behavior. The defined conclusions and offers will allow improving the legal regulation of relationships regarding unauthorized construction.

The paper studies the issue of parliamentary responsibility development as a constitutional and legal institution in the system of constitutional law science. The purpose of the paper is to identify the types of parliamentary responsibility entities as the key element when determining the legislative process mechanism. The relevance of the study of the issue of parliamentary responsibility is caused by the necessity to improve the quality of the legislation process. The international experience of parliamentary system development causes the necessity to research the legal status of parliamentary responsibility entities as an element of the legislative process. The author carried out the theoretical and legal research of parliamentary responsibility as an element of the legislative process. At the current stage of development of legal theory, the parliamentary responsibility has not received its recognition and finds its practical rationale within the frames of political responsibility, responsibility in constitutional delict and disciplinary responsibility of a deputy. The study of the practice of legal regulation on structuring the chambers of federal parliament and regional parliaments allowed formulating the types of parliamentary responsibility entities. The author’s suggestions on the differentiation of the parliamentary responsibility types will promote the legislation. The prospects of establishing parliamentary responsibility are proved as the key basics of legal regulation of the legislation process. The author identified the causes of insufficient development of the parliamentary responsibility institution. Thus, the lack of distinct characteristics of the parliament entities (collegial and individual structural components of parliament) hinders the development of a legal basis for the establishment of parliamentary responsibility measures what causes the uncertainty in the establishment of parliamentary responsibility at various stages of the legislative process. The author concluded the necessity of the development and legal regulation of type classification of the parliamentary responsibility entities to regulate the mechanism of legislative procedures implementation in parliaments.