Legislation on entrepreneurship at the federal level consists of a tremendous array of laws governing business and legal relationships. The author reveals the "law" category and its content as a specific source of law in economics. The author provides an overview of the views on the place of a law in the system of sources of Soviet economic law and modern business law. The paper differentiates the concepts "a law" and "a source of law", the latter being generic and including all kinds of sources of legal regulation of entrepreneurship at the present stage. The paper concludes that a rule-making competence for business legislation belongs to the joint jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and its constituent entities, reflects constitutional foundation and regional specificity of business relations regulation taking into account geographical, demographic, historical and other peculiarities of the Russian Federation constituent entities. The paper expands the existing system of laws at the federal and regional levels that includes: the Constitution of the Russian Federation, federal constitutional laws, federal laws, constitutions (charters) of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and the laws of the Russian Federation constituent entities. For ease of understanding the system of business laws, the author defines codified and non-codified laws, the latter for the purposes of this research are divided into governing (establishing): the legal status of persons at law; business (economic) activity in general and guarantees of its implementation; specific economic activity (in a certain area); persons at law and their economic activities; a mode of economic activities and obligations under business law. The author draws attention to the balance between institutions, sectors and subsectors of business law. The author criticizes proposals that can be found in domestic jurisprudence for the formation of separate branches of law based on the array of normative rules regulating independent activities (banking, insurance, transport, exchange, etc.) due to the absence of a common general part (general provisions and principles) for such branches of law. In conclusion, the author suggests that we should return to the ideas of codification of federal laws that deal with entrepreneurial activity, namely adoption of the Business Code of Russia.

The article raises the question of a modern role of methodology in criminal law and criminal law studies. The author reveals the essence of methodology in criminal law and its significance, approaches to methodology definitions and its current state. The author pays special attention to materialist dialectics and a formal-dogmatic method of cognition, their specificity and manifestations in criminal law. Pluralism in the methodology of criminal law does not contribute to its development. The current situation within the framework of criminal law methodology reveals a contradiction between new actual data with regard to law enforcement practice concerning the issues of criminal law application and the older ways of their explanations. These contradictions can lead to a diversion of a legal abstraction existing in criminal law from particular legal reality, as well as to accumulation of only a certain amount of knowledge concerning a particular criminal phenomenon at the empirical level. It is noted that criminal law methodology should be defined as a system of principles and ways to organize, form, and implement cognitive-theoretical legal experience in the field of research on crime and punishment. Criminal law methodology should not be equated with a formal-dogmatic method of cognition and take it as a basis for scientific research. The core of criminal law methodology is a unity of transmutation of dialectics, gnosiology and legal dogmatics. Methodology of the modern science of criminal law is a complex and multi-faceted institution that covers: problems of a structure of scientific knowledge in criminal law and scientific theories (constructions); laws of appearance, functioning and changes of scientific legal theories and doctrines in criminal law; a conceptual frame of criminal law; the structure and operative system of research methods applied in the criminal law; analysis of a criminal law language. In the future, methodological foundations of criminal law should be associated with an ability and cognitive perspective to combine methodological approaches and the knowledge of crime and punishment or their elements.

This article analyzes the main arguments of the opponents of introducing criminal liability for legal entities. The paper discusses its social causation and international obligations of Russia in this area. The author dwells on historical reasons of introducing criminal liability for legal entities in our country. The paper examines conceptual possibilities for establishing criminal liability of legal entities, its conformity with the principles of criminal law of Russia, the balance between criminal and administrative liability. The paper analyzes the possibility for a legal entity to commit a crime, the balance between criminal liability of a legal entity and a person, problems associated with the system of penalties for legal persons, a possibility of using foreign experience in this area. Also, it examines the possibility of integrating legal entities criminal liability rules into the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author draws a conclusion concerning essential refutability of arguments of opponents of criminal liability of legal entities. The author argues for its introduction and justifies the objective necessity of its implementation into Russian criminal law for a variety of factors. The author specifies what should be borne in mind to implement it. It is noted that positive effects of its implementation can overcome all potential problems.

The paper discusses a general description of the language of criminal law and basic methodological approaches to the development of a theoretical model of a linguistic form of a new Criminal Code. Based on a natural-language approach, the author highlights that the language of criminal law is a system of lexical and grammatical means of expressing the content of normative and legal regulations of criminal law (criminal law prescriptions). An ontological status of the criminal law language of criminal law is determined by the fact that it belongs to a natural (for the Criminal Code of the RF it is the Russian language) language and a genre that is adapted to the sphere of criminal law regulation. It is proved that two main characteristics, namely accuracy and clarity, are inherent in the language of criminal law. Accuracy is defined as a maximum compliance between a legislative thought (legislative will) and an expression of that thought (will) in the wording of a law; clarity means certainty, distinctness of an expression of a legislative thought (legislative will) in the wording of a law. It is argued that the language of criminal law is a specialized language designed primarily for professionals and lawyers, and for citizens, to whom criminal law prescriptions are addressed, it is enough to have a general idea that they are prohibited to commit acts defined in the Special Part of the RF Criminal Code as crimes under threat of penalty. However, this statement should not be considered as absolute, because a number of permissive rules are included into the system of domestic criminal law that give a person the right to cause harm while respecting established criminal law requirements; these conditions shall be prescribed in a natural plain language that is understood by its main recipients -"ordinary people" - without any unknown, little-known, highly specialized criminal law terms. The author offers using main methodological approaches to develop a theoretical model of a linguistic form of a new Criminal Code of Russia that are based on both per se juristic methods (comparative-legal and historical-legal) and methods inherent in linguistics (linguistic descriptions, contextual analysis, an interpretive method).

The article deals with the institution of the public domain: the basis of its content and regulation in international copyright law, as well as implementation of universal international agreements in the sphere of copyright in the national law of the states parties to such agreements. The author identifies common features of entrenchment of the institute of public domain in national copyright law of states that formed under the influence of the process of law harmonization: defining conditions of transferring works to public domain and the limits of using such works based on the law-of-the-state-of-protection conflict-of-law connecting factor"(lex loci protectionis), entrenchment of an exclusive rights expiration criteria as a legal basis for transferring a work into public domain; legal recognition of public domain as a part of a culture of a society that should be available to everyone. For an in-depth research, the institute of public domain in copyright law is more thoroughly discussed in terms of law and order in the United States, France and Russia. The author dwells on the problems that characterize the effectiveness of the institute of public domain in modern cross-border relations and that arise due to different levels of economic and cultural development of states and territoriality of international copyright law: different understanding of relations covered by public domain, different approaches to defining the moment of transfer of works into public domain, an undeveloped regime of public domain and sanctions for its infringement, almost complete abandonment of extraterritoriality of norms of the institute of public domain. As a result of research, the author brings forward proposals to improve legal regulation of public domain in the Russian Federation. For authors wishing to convey their work into public domain, the author proposes that the legal framework order should be established; choice of law rules in determining the holder of exclusive rights conveyed by means of a trans-boundary contract and recovered after being transferred to public domain on the ground of a conflict-of-laws connecting factor "the law of the country of origin" (lex origin); clarification of rights of authors that are derived from works that previously had remained in public domain and later were restored in protection of works.

The article is devoted to such a mass, but yet not researched, social and legal phenomenon as giving an assessment of the performance of public authorities and their officials. The main issues covered in the paper are as follows: the problem of using the term "feedback" in jurisprudence; the practice of giving feedback in the Internet, legal entrenchment of assessment of public authorities performance; recognition of assessments given by citizens as one of the categories of citizen's petitions; the problem of applying the legislation on citizen's petitions to assessments and feedback ; the problem of efficient processing and taking into account the information obtained by means of feedback. Main findings and suggestions: 1) the author defines a feedback as a particular form of a petition from a citizen that meets certain requirements and contains an evaluation of performance of public authorities or bodies of local government, as well as their officials; 2) the author analyzes ways of giving feedback available to citizens: by means of public Internet portals "Your Control" and "Public Services" using electronic terminals on the premises of public authorities and multi-function centers, as well as on the phone; 3) the author analyzes the normative regulation and practice of implementing each of the ways of giving an assessment; 4) on the basis of the analysis of features of citizens' petitions as a generic category it is proved that assessments are a special kind of petitions that are distinguished by their purpose (assessment of performance of public authority) and do not result in binding responses to them; 5) the author defined advantages of assessments as a form of feedback in comparison with traditional petitions (proposals, claims and complaints); 6) on the basis of an analysis of existing legal acts concerning assessments, the author concludes that it is not sufficient to regulate the institute by means of by-laws only because assessments in their form mean an exercise of the constitutional right to petition and the right to participate in managing state affairs of the Russian Federation (Articles 32 and 33 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation); 7) the author defines provisions of a draft Federal Law "On the assessment of the activities of the organs of state power and local self-government " in the part of regulation of the institute of assessments and its separation from other forms of citizens' petitions.

Discussion of the death penalty only as a legal category does not lead to a correct understanding of its phenomenon and leads to endless debate on the admissibility/inadmissibility of using this form of criminal punishment that have been proceeding for centuries. The question of the death penalty application should be considered from the standpoint of interests of the state sovereignty that is characterized by not only independence of a state in the international arena, but also by its supremacy within the country. The supremacy, in its turn, is provided by the state monopoly on the use of legitimate violence, one form of which includes a criminal punishment as a specific means of combating crime. Accordingly, in case of refusal of the death penalty application, the range of criminal law actions is deprived of the toughest and the most serious in its social and legal implications individual measure of state coercion and due to this a political organization no longer has the "monopoly on violence" in a society and cannot be considered as an absolute sovereign. Such an approach to understanding the nature of the death penalty is consistent with an approach that is widespread in sociology according to which a state as a "monopoly on violence"; under this definition the legitimate use of violence is assigned only to a state. The author confirms this statement by means of the research carried out by French philosopher Michel Foucault, who analyzing the mechanism of public execution comes to conclusions that public execution is not just an act of justice, but demonstration of power and absolute sovereign authority. With this understanding of the nature of the death penalty, the recent legal approaches, developed by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in cases with an international law element when the Court recommends to take into account provisions of the RF Constitution that entrench the sovereignty of Russia, supremacy and supreme legal force of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in the Russian legal system, provide for conditions for the application of the death penalty. In this context, the paper gives a new assessment of traditional arguments of the opponents of the death penalty, such as; 1) the death penalty is a barbaric, anachronistic and absurd measure; it runs counter to the ideas of progress and civilization; 2) only God has the right to take away life, because He gives it to a man; a state may not do this, which means that the death penalty is deeply immoral; 3) the death penalty as a form of criminal punishment has an extremely low preventive value, so it is not needed.

The article provides an overview of the standpoints of the Russian criminologists of the 19th century on one of the most complicated and critical problems of criminal law, namely opportunities and the admissibility of the application of death penalty as a form of criminal punishment. The debates on the admissibility and feasibility of death penalty have taken place as long as it exists as a form of punishment. Besides, not only lawyers have been debating on the issue; philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, theologians, publicists, specialists in other branches of science have been actively involved in this discussion as well. Throughout this time the polar positions have remained the same (rather, some authors have changed their point of view): some consider the existence of this kind of sentence possible (valid); others believe the death penalty is unjustifiable measure (moreover, doing more harm than good). The authors show the position of scientists having denied the usefulness of this criminal law measure. In particular, they present the standpoints of such well-known specialists as P.D. Kalmykov, V.D. Spasovich, A.F. Kistyakovskiy and N. D. Sergeevvsky. Particular attention is given to the works of the latter two authors, as they studied the problem specifically. A.F. Kistyakovskiy had studied the problem before N.D. Sergeevvskiy, so the latter analyzes and his arguments, considering that speaking out against the death penalty the scientist had proved to some extent unconvincing.

The subject of this article is the evolution of the institute of death penalty in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the USSR in the period from 1917 to 1926. The author provides a detailed analysis of the acts of law-making, revolutionary law-making process, Guidelines on Criminal Law of the RSFSR 1919, Criminal Code of RSFSR 1922, Criminal Code of RSFSR 1926, setting or abolishing the death penalty during the studied period. This article also examines the reasons for the introduction or abolition of the death penalty in the first years of Soviet power, making it possible to infer a change in understanding of the role of the death penalty in the transformation of public policy goals and objectives.

The article briefly analyzes the system of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Principality of Liechtenstein 1987 and considers its main features. The work emphasizes that the system of the special part of the Criminal Code of Liechtenstein, as most modern Criminal Codes, is built on the basis of a specific sequence of criminal legal protection: first it outlines the structures of the offences against the person, then against society and, finally, against the State. This approach reflects the ideology of criminal law, which regards identity as the main and most significant value. This article discusses issues related to criminal liability under the Criminal Code of the Principality of Liechtenstein for crimes against the person. The author analyses crimes against life and health, against future life, against freedom, against the honour and against privacy. Key features indicative of the relevant criminal law institutions in Liechtenstein are identified. Current official statistics is provided. Where necessary, there is a comparison with the Russian legislation. It is shown that the Liechtenstein's Criminal Code distinguishes between "felony murder" and "murder" and its variants. The first de facto composition is the main and subsequent-privileged. Since murder involves a sanction of up to life imprisonment, the legislator did not deem it necessary to allocate additional convoys of a qualified murder. The authors draw attention to the fact that Liechtenstein provided three link crane system and degrees of severity of the harm that aims at differentiation of responsibility for crimes against health. It is shown that in the criminal law of the country there is a fairly wide range of criminal acts unknown to the Russian Criminal Code. This is largely due to the specifics of the legal thinking of the criminal code developers in the neighboring Austria, from which they were transferred to Liechtenstein. It is proved that the rules of the Liechtenstein Criminal Code establishing liability for crimes against the person, can be used by Russian legislators when carrying out further reforms, and may also be taken into account in the domestic criminal law theory.

Just as the universe was created with the Big Bang and its ongoing expansion so the crime of money laundering since its creation has been expanding unceasingly. The Spanish legislature added, with organic laws 5/2010, 1/2015 and 2/2015, three additional reforms to the already long list of modifications on money laundering that undermine the legal certainty and the consideration of criminal law as ultima ratio. Organic law 1/2015 of March 30, although says eliminating the petty offenses, using Orwellian Newspeak, it actually transforms most of them into minor offenses in Spain, so that expands the preceding facts of money laundering. Organic law 2/2015, also of March 30, introduces a new form of money laundering in article 576 of the Spanish Criminal Code, with a terrorist purpose, which distorts the legally protected interest by criminalization of money laundering, because it is not required that the goods used for terrorism are of illegal origin. Terrorism financing and money laundering must not be confused to extend onto money laundering the exceptional and reinforced protection of the prevention of terrorism. The fight against terrorism can not become an excuse to control absolutely all citizens and to destroy the guarantees of the rule of law. The expansion in punishment of money laundering is taking place worldwide. China has also punished money laundering from drug crimes, organized criminal syndicate nature or smuggling crimes in 1997, terrorism in 2001, corruption, bribery and disrupting the order of financial administration and financial fraud crimes in 2006. How long will our Criminal Code wait to punish money laundering from mere administrative infractions or civil wrongs? Both human rights and the principles of legal certainty and proportionality prohibit criminalization, by connivance with terrorism, normal behaviour in a democratic society, because the reason of state can not prevail over the reason of law.

The article describes a problem of legal regulation of offences in the sphere of ecology in the new criminal law of the Republic of Kazakhstan adopted in July 3, 2014. The author critically analyses the chapter "Environmental Criminal Offences", expansion of the scope of criminal liability, construction of individual criminal articles of the Criminal Code, as well as the regulatory decree of the Supreme Court on environmental crimes. He also considers the problem of the criminalization and penalization of careless acts in the sphere of ecology, establishing the subjective side of offences in which a form of guilt is not specified, the accounting of different socio-political entity, intentional and negligent crimes when constructing articles, the necessity of an accurate regulation of evaluation indicators in criminal law. Given the theoretical science of criminal law, the Concept of Legal Policy in the Republic for the Period from 2010 to 2020, the lawmaking and law enforcement experience from previous years, there were formulated conclusions and proposals for further improvement of the specified group of socially dangerous acts in the Criminal Code and judicial practice.

This article discusses the legal framework and content of educational work with young professionals in the Prosecutor's Office. The author summarizes the legal sources governing the educational work with young professionals, defines its essence and direction, as well as proposes measures for its improvement. The analysis found that the essence of educational work with young professionals and its direction is conditioned by the versatility of the Prosecutor's Office, the public service in the Prosecutor's Office, through the special requirements for prosecutors, the need for their retention, as well as accelerated and complete their acquisition of knowledge, skills and moral and volitional qualities. Regulatory sources of the process of educational work with young professionals in the system of the prosecution bodies are systematized. The author also suggests the regulatory framework to enshrine the notion of young professional organizations and bodies of the Procurator's Office by order of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation or the law on the Prosecutor's Office. The features of the educational work in the system of the public prosecutor's Office with young professionals are defined. It is concluded that regulatory performance criteria fixing this work at the departmental level is in demand. The author stresses that the priority of educational work with young professionals is the prevention of corruption and other offences.

This article discusses controversial issues of definition of the subject of a crime in general and drug related crimes in particular, the correlation of the object and the subject of the offence. The position on the issue presented in in the theory of criminal law is shown, its critical analysis is provided. Special attention is given to the study of the subject of the illicit trafficking in drugs and other substances named in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including the new potentially harmful psychoactive substances that are also a sign of the whole drug related crimes. The content of their medical, social, legal and physical properties is revealed. The author believes that abandoning the prevailing approach to acknowledging appropriate analogues as the subject of the acts in question, as proposed by some criminologists, in combating modern constantly changing drug related crimes would be unwise. At the same time it is stressed that the institute of analogues of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances is virtually "dead"; in judicial practice such cases, with rare exceptions, are not found; reanimation of this institution requires not only clarification of the concepts, but also detailed regulation mechanism of its implementation in a number of normative legal acts. The characteristic of plants containing narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances (drug-containing plants) is provided. The author concludes that the regulation have unreasonably limited a range of specified subject of crimes to only plants, and suggests including mushrooms as a special class of living organisms that combine traits of plants and animals. The characteristics of precursors are considered. The author reveals the features of tools and equipment used in the manufacture of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances.

The article analyses the attitude of power and society in Russia to pornography during almost a century-long period from 1917 up to the present. The regulations of the RSFSR and USSR, which impose prohibitions in the sphere of circulation of pornographic materials and items have been studied: decrees of Soviet power of November 24,1917 "On the Trial" and of March 7,1918 No.2 "On the Trial"; of 18 (31) December 1917 "On Civil Marriage, Children and on Records of Acts of State"; of 16 (29) December 1917 "Divorce"; Saratov Region Council of People's Commissars "On Abolition of Private Ownership by Women"; Vladimir Sovdep of January 1, 1918 "The Emancipation of Women." The author notes indifferent attitude of the Soviet Government to the spread of pornography in the country and cultivating a pornography by the society. He considers the theory of sexual revolution, common in Soviet Russia in the first quarter of the 20th century: "glass of water" and the "theory of a winged Eros". The article highlights the time of the creation of the "gender platform" of the revolutionary proletariat in the middle of the 20-ies of the last century in the form of "Twelve sexual commandments" and the ruling party's control over sexuality. The author conducts the analysis of criminal legislation of 1922, 1926 and 1960,1996 as well as the International Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of Obscene Publications and Trade» 1923 and adopted after the CEC SNK USSR «On Responsibility for the Production, Storage and Marketing of Pornographic Publications, Pictures or Trafficking" under which the Criminal Code of the RSFSR 1926 was supplemented by the norm providing for liability for the production, distribution and advertising of pornographic writings, publications, images and other items, as well as trafficking and possession for the purpose of sale or distribution. With the adoption of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR 1960 the punishment for these acts was reduced. However, the disposition of the article, which established responsibility for trafficking in pornography, remained unchanged until the adoption of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the provisions of the Welsh Laws of Hywel the Good, related to the criminal law. The law remained the main source of law in Wales until the conquest of the Principality of English by King Edward I in 1284, and the introduction of Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. The creation of the Act is attributed to the Welsh King Hywel the Good (X century), although the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Act are dated back to the 13th century. Particular attention is given to the substance of the third part of the Act "Justices' Test Book", original manuals, knowledge of which was mandatory for the administration of the duties of a judge. This part of the Law distinguishes the contemporary medieval vaults from the Laws of Hywel the Good. "Justices' Test Book", which is a set of rules of criminal and procedural law, consists of subsections, dealing with murder, theft, fire, compensation for damage caused to property, personal injury. The main part of the "Justices' Test Book" is dedicated to order payment of all sorts of compensation and fines associated with the commission of an offence. The author emphasizes the role of the clan in Welsh society: all fines and compensation payments were laid on the shoulders of the perpetrator and his relatives. A major issue addressed in the article is the evidence of the commission of the offence by the accused. The author draws the attention to the process of announcement and the process of finding an acquirer in bad faith of assets recognized as stolen. It is interesting that such a rule is found in the Russian Justice and Swedish Vestgjotalage. The author finds the ascendancy of compensation payments for damage caused prevailing over the above penalties in Welsh law, explaining this relative weakness of public authorities on the one hand and the other by legal tradition, as even the increased power of Welsh Princes in the XII-XIII centuries. has not led to significant changes in the rules.

On the 22-23, 27 of April the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL) held the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference "Morality and Law: Ethical and Philosophical Understanding and the Practice of Convergence". It was initiated, organized and conducted by Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Socio-Economic Disciplines V. M. Artemov, the head of the legal-philosophical Club "The Moral Dimension of Law". Many participants were actively engaged in its work, for example, Moscow-Petersburg Philosophical Club led by the Scientific Director of the Institute of Philosophy of Sciences of RAS, Academician of RAS, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor A.A. Guseinov, the Department of Ethics at the Faculty of Filosophy, MSU headed by Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor A. V. Razin, and many representatives of scientific and educational centres of Russia (Higher School of Economics, the RAS Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, GUU, RUDN University, Saint-Petersburg Agrarian University, Moscow Polytech - Podolsk Branch and so on). The Vice-Rector for Scientific Work, Doctor of Law, Professor Vladimir N. Sinyukov welcomed the participant of the Conference. The problem of strengthening morality in law was actively discussed by the representatives of leading university Chairs of Constitutional and Municipal Law, History of State and Law, Theory of State and Law, Advocacy and Notaries, Business law, Criminal Law, Criminology, etc.