Under the materialistic theory of law, positive law is capable of acting as a valid law not in any act of lawmaking, but only in an act, and to the extent, where it is consistent with universal principles of objective law: interdependence, equality, equivalence and free will. These principles taken together form the essence of the legal form of the first economic relation in the history, i.e. exchange, and of modern production, distribution and consumer economic relations. Contemporary law, like law at all previous stages of historic development, is valid provided that it possesses all the fundamental features of the legal form of economic relations. Otherwise, positive private law amounts to the transformed form of law. The society, its members refuse to abide by any law constituting a transformed form of law that prevents them from satisfying their interests and creates new legal norms. Rules of law established by the society constitute a pre-positive law - a set of rules of effective private law that are formed in order to fill in the gaps in existing legislation and that are exercised in specific legal relations until those rules are entrenched by positive law. In order to democratize legislative process and speed up transition of prepositive rules into positive law, we believe that the institutions of direct democracy need to be considerably expanded, and that proper conditions should be created for the people to determine its own political system, rule of law and the way of further development of its civil society and form its rule-of-law state.

In the current context of the development of legal validity, international legal and national legal systems need adequate protection on behalf of a law-enforcement system the main instrument of which is legal responsibility. Protection of the interests of the society and state is ensured by a whole range of measures of legal responsibility combined together through a common type of responsibility - namely, public law responsibility. Ambiguity in the understanding of the category "public responsibility" creates uncertainty in understanding its legal nature and content both in the theory and in practice. The article justifies the need to single out public responsibility on the basis of the need to improve knowledge in the sphere of public law, to ensure full protection of the interests of the State and society, to systematize and enhance the effectiveness of this legal category in all its manifestations with regard to the importance of improving the legal quality and practical orientation of official interpretations of the relevant legal rules. Examination of the totality of national doctrinal and law enforcement (judicial) considerations reveals basic features of public responsibility. Public law responsibility is identified and applied in order to protect legitimate interests of the State and society by means of enforcing rules of public law. The scope of public law application is limited to social relations where public interest is affected and implementation of both public and private rights is involved. The main forms of public responsibility include constitutional, criminal and administrative responsibility; and other forms of responsibility cause debate. Formalization of public responsibility finds itself in public law rules and depends on whether responsibility is conferred on a certain branch of national law or an international legal system. Public law responsibility arises on the basis of a public offence that is determined on the ground of the offender's fault and contains all the elements. Potential subjects of public responsibility include collective and individual subjects of law. Implementation of public responsibility is possible in both voluntary and involuntary manners, and particularities and the mechanism (order) of its imposition depends on the type of responsibility and the authority applying the sanctions. The highest judicial tribunals in the Russian Federation set forth general rules for imposing public liability in various (unrelated) acts. The author draws final conclusions based on the results of the survey.

The article investigates an important aspect of a political and legal theory - the genesis and structural features of hypothetical or imaginary forms of the State and law. Using historical data, the author makes generalizations concerning both evolutionary and mutational development of political and legal forms. An Aristotelian retrospective of state transformations was changed to the Augustine's theory of Two Cities that played an important role in medieval political doctrines. Amalgamation of political forms seemed to be the best method for creating an ideal model of statehood. 18-19 centuries witnessed the development of a firm understanding of an "absolute" political environment, within the framework of which a specific concept, namely - national statehood, appeared. A political (state) form has traveled a long historical way in its development laying foundations for both political and legal varieties and aspects and for the emergence of modern State entities. In the article much attention is devoted to the analysis of two important principles of state formation: the principle of identity and the principle of representation. Legal ideas and institutions that pervaded those largely imaginary areas gave them an essential element of reality. Even in the context of revolutionary changes, when the old State form was fading, law remained a state-forming element. Ideal models of state forms that often turned into political and ideological utopias needed the rule of law and regulation that continued to exist after the disappearance of political conditions that had generated them.

The article introduces a special theoretical construction of a genetic code of the legal culture into scientific use. Being guided by the works of philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists, the author describes the legal culture of the society as a multi-level, integral, developing system that has a unique genetic code. The genetic code of the legal culture is presented in the form of a DNA molecule where natural (biological) and cultural (worldview) universals intertwine and are linked together by means of different ways of thinking. The first part enshrines universal principles and ideals that ensure the survival and perfection of mankind. Different as legal cultures are in various societies, preservation and transmission of these universal principles and ideals from generation to generation (mutual assistance, self-preservation, community based nature of life, taking care of posterity, need for communication, self-regulation, etc.) predetermines homogeneity of cultures of different societies and their development in the general flow of human history. Cultural (ideological) universals are based on the social nature of the human being. They include not only socially recognized phenomena (legal traditions, values, rituals, ceremonies, modes of upbringing, legal relationships, patterns of behavior, etc.) but also socially unconscious behavioral responses: gestures, communication style, etc. Different types of thinking and activities put together biological and social nature of the human community into a harmonious unity. Legal thinking is a way of knowing, expressing (articulating) and understanding (world perception) legal reality. This process of sense making or understanding law is carried out in the unity of different types (modes) of becoming familiar with social reality - sensual, intuitive and rational. By means of understanding and acquiring senses biological universals are "transformed" into cultural universals, which is reflected in the language and mentality of the people. A genocode in the legal culture of the society explains their discreteness and structural and functional unity, reveals the unity (natural universals) and uniqueness (world perception universals). As a result of the undertaken analysis, the author of the article concludes that genetic code can justify typological uniqueness of the legal culture of the society in the global cultural space.

The article describes the concepts of participation of citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the State in the Russian Federation. Having analyzed contemporary military threats to the security of the state, the author clarifies the features of the legal institution in question. On the basis of the analysis the author defines directions for the state authorities development in the sphere of involving citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the state and describes the legal status of an individual as the subject of legal relations. In the author's view, participation of citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the state is the highest form of the rule of the people that determines the existence of the State and state power regardless of the form of government and political regime. The concept of participation of citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the State must comply with the requirements of a democratic, legitimate and social state, as well as protection of democratic institutions such as elections, public initiative from destructive influence. Participation of citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the state is based, first, on the implementation of the duty and responsibility to protect the Fatherland on the basis of patriotic beliefs and, secondly, the need to protect against massive and gross violations of human and civil rights and freedoms, and to protect against enemy aggression, which makes it necessary to apply new forms and types of participation of citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the State in accordance with the dynamics of public relations, military threats, and changes in the nature of military conflicts. Involvement of citizens in the defense of the country and the security of the State entails application of legal means of restricting human and civil rights and freedoms and strengthening the supervisory role of the authorized bodies. A citizen as a participant of legal relations aimed at the defense of the country and the security of the State is vested with the corresponding rights and duties, which gives rise to the application of a set of legal means of limitation. The highest means in the hierarchy of such means includes delegation of powers, which implies imposition of duties, restrictions on the limits of the exercise of rights, imposition of control, measures of responsibility and the means of protecting rights and freedoms.

The article provides a comparative analysis of some ineffective and valid rulings of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation regarding application of labor law provisions. In particular, the author examines controversial issues arising in the enforcement practice concerning termination of an employment contract at the initiative of the employee and the employer. In the effective rulings of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, there are two de facto different approaches to the issue of the date of the employee's dismissal if an organization is liquidated. It appears that the date of the employee's dismissal must coincide with the date of an intermediate financial statement approval. Certain difficulties are caused by issues related to the failure of the employer to comply with the time limits set forth in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation regarding the procedure of warning an employee about impending discontinuation of an employment contract (a two-month period of dismissal in case of staff reduction and a three-day period in case of the employment contract expiration). The article examines inconsistent court practice regarding the procedure of recognizing absence of an employee from the workplace without a good reason for more than four consecutive hours as absenteeism, discusses advantages and disadvantages of Paragraphs 20 (discontinuation of employment at the initiative of an employee), 35 and 39 (order of employment discontinuation for culpable violations of labor duties) of Ruling № 2 of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the RF of 17 March 2004, as well as matters relating to material liability of an employee for the damage caused to the employer while fulfilling labor duties. The problem amounts to the question whether it is legitimate in this case to claim damages from an employee under civil law. This issue was previously resolved by Ruling №8 of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR of 23 September 1987. The paper indicates that the new chapter of the RF LC requires an immediate clarification concerning peculiarities of regulation of the work of employees (staff) who are sent temporarily to other physical or legal entities under the secondment contract by their employers.

Article 15 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On Subsoil" contains social, economic and environmental interests, but the legislation does not provide any definition of the concepts. The paper proposes definitions of these concepts with due regard to peculiarities of the subsoil use. The construction of public interests as economic, social and environmental categories contains internal inconsistencies. It is suggested that the priority of a revealed contradiction should be interpreted for the benefit of the state that can compensate adverse environmental and social consequences resulting from making subsoil available for use. This priority should be enshrined in the subsoil legislation of the Russian Federation.

The article analyses the main scientific approaches to the problem of implementation of administrative justice (administrative court proceedings) in the Russian Federation. After the Code of Administrative Procedure of the RF entered into force, a new branch of law has actually evolved with a specific subject matter and method of legal regulation. At the same time, the analysis of a number of scientific works led to the conclusion that the valid administrative procedural legislation is largely composed of procedural rules taken from civil court proceedings. In addition, based on the study of the experience of establishing and implementing administrative justice in the Republic of Crimea during the Ukrainian period of its history, and the study of scientific works containing statistics concerning the number of cases dealt with by the courts of general jurisdiction that are now subject to the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation (RF CAP), the authors conclude that it is not appropriate at this time to establish a separate specific system of administrative courts in Russia . However, the authors do not exclude the possibility to revert to this matter in the future if certain changes in social relations will take place, administrative procedural sciences will develop, jurisdiction concerning certain categories of cases and the results of the enforcement activities of the courts with regard to the application of the RF CAP will be modified. Ascertaining the fact of administrative proceedings having been established in Russia, the authors believe that in order to develop a separate science of administrative procedure a further study of theoretical problems in this field, an analysis of the practice of applying existing administrative procedures and subsequent amendments and improvements to the RF CAP will be necessary.

The article discusses the correlation of concepts of "crime" and "misconduct", features of social danger of these phenomena. It is concluded that the distinction between misconduct and crime lies, above all, in their degree of danger to society. The author provides the definition of 'misconduct' and defines its types and features. Special attention is given to the study of legal misconduct features, as other misdemeanors possess no public danger. The author assesses the opinions of scholars on possible return of the category of criminal misconduct into domestic criminal law. The article criticizes the point of view, according to which the misconduct takes an 'intermediate' position between a crime and an administrative offence. The result of the analysis of criminal law covering offences with administrative prejudicial effect, also showed the impermissibility of classifying such acts as criminal offences. The article examines different positions of the domestic lawyers about the possibility of expanding the scope of criminal law. The author supports the view that there is a need for criminal law in a "broad sense", since the existence of administrative responsibility leads to blurring of the boundaries of criminal repression and contradicts the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. With regard to amendments of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with Art. 2042 "Petty Commercial Bribery" and Art. 2912 "Petty Bribery" the author substantiates the view on the inadmissibility of inclusion of the crimes which legislators tend to define as petty into the criminal law. The author considers different ways of crime classification (categorization) provided in law books. The analysis of Art. 15 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation showed that the legislator does not relate the acts for which the Criminal Code provides for less severe punishment than deprivation of liberty to any of the categories. It is concluded that there is need for specifying the crime category of the 'least grave offence' that should be used to refer to acts less harmful in nature and degree of danger to society than minor offences. The legal criminal value of such a detailed categorization of criminal acts depending on their severity is shown.

The subject of this study is the correlation between the declared targeting and the actual results of the Russian Criminal Policy 2009-2017 in part of strengthening of criminal responsibility and punishment of persons committing crimes while intoxicated. The author analyses and critically assesses the legislation novelties in this direction and the practice of their implementation. The overall conclusion of the author is disappointing: announced by our State criminal policy to strengthen criminal responsibility and punishment of persons who committed crimes while intoxicated is characterized by a number of systemic weaknesses that, in view of the "contribution" of all the forms of implementation of criminal policy - legislation, enforcement activities and the practice of the Constitutional and Supreme courts of the Russian Federation - leads to paradoxical results, the main ones are the following. 1. Criminalization in 2014 of such an act as the driving of a motor vehicle by a person in a state of intoxication, which is, in fact, a minor hazardous ofeence (Art. 2641), has been carried out against the backdrop of the 2003 decriminalization of more socially dangerous acts from the point of view of the values of objects of the criminal legal protection. It also gives a significant increment in the number of persons with convictions for minor offences that are not consistent with the trend of criminal policy in the part of its focus on reducing the number of persons having convictions for minor offences, and also more dangerous ones. 2. The policy of 'strengthening' is of fractionary nature, which is manifested in the establishment of the qualifying feature 'committing of a crime in a state of intoxication' (Article 264 of the Criminal Code) only in one offence; as a result equal and even more dangerous acts remain outside the concept. 3. Permissible by criminal law and implemented in practice possibility of exemption from criminal responsibility (on the grounds established by Art. 75 and 76 of the Criminal Code) for persons who have committed offences under Art. 264 and 2641 of the Criminal Code eliminates the objective of enhancing the criminal responsibility of individuals having committed the offences while intoxicated. 4. Introduction into Art. 63 of the Criminal Code of such circumstances aggravating punishment as 'an offence in a state of intoxication', does not give a real scale strengthening of punishment of persons who committed offences while intoxicated.

The article discusses the evolution of views on administrative responsibility and tendencies of development of this type of legal liability. In the Soviet and modern Russian law administrative liability has been considered as various legal phenomena - the administrative procedure of bringing to responsibility, responsibility for administrative offences and the overall legal responsibility for offences characterized by intrinsic differences. Thus, the administrative procedure of bringing to responsibility is characterized by sentencing in simplified procedures by an administrative body acting outside the field of judicial review, and as its purpose has the rapid enforcement of regulations of local and Central Government through punitive measures. The article notes that since the 60-ies of the XX century the law has provided for judicial appointment of individual punishment (corrective labour, administrative arrest, eviction in specially designated area, etc.), judicial control over the administrative authorities when inflicting a fine and has been determined by the features of guilt of a wrongful act as a basis for responsibility. By this, they limit the accountability of the administrative order, create conditions for the emergence of a new mechanism - the responsibility for administrative offences, which was finally formed with the systematization of legislation and the adoption of the Basis of Legislation of the USSR and the Union republics on Administrative Offences and the Administrative Offences Code of the RSFSR 1984. The author analyzes key concepts related to administrative responsibility, and finds that a Soviet legislator semantically matched the concept of 'administrative offence' with the term 'offence', introduced into the Administrative Offences Code 2001,which became a system error that led to the loss of the scope and criteria for regulation and eventually transformed the responsibility for administrative offences into the overall legal responsibility for a wrongdoing. Such changes from distorting mechanisms of legal liability and legislation on administrative offences has been turned into a platform for widespread use of disproportionate sanctions. This article takes an opportunity to address the problem and identifies the need for a substantial revision of all legislation, including the Criminal Code, on the basis of the principle of proportionality of punishments.

The issues of State sovereignty in the information and telecommunications field is determined by the objective characteristics of the network (the transboundary nature of legal relations, etc.) and subjective factors in the evolution of domain name system management and technical infrastructure (the concentration of powers in the Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers). It is important to identify signs of conflict between the principles of stability, fault tolerance and freedom to disseminate information on the Internet, as well as State sovereignty, etc., the persistence of unipolar quasi-monopoly on Internet governance tools and mechanisms that create the preconditions to develop new organizational forms of control on the basis of the norms of international law. Firstly, the article analyses the main issues and trends in the development of doctrinal views on nature, means of securing cyberspace for the sovereignty of States and their legal liability for the activities of Internet users within both traditional spheres of territorial jurisdiction and the "fifth domain" sovereign rule. Secondly, the article shows the problem of State sovereignty in cyberspace, which should be dealt with comprehensively and systematically, especially taking into account the interests of the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of a man and citizen (sovereignty), the interests of the development of civil society and ensure the defense and security of the State. The study expands scientific ideas about the nature and appointment of State sovereignty on the Internet; on the basis of the analysis of a large array of legal information the author identifies the main reference points that will make it possible to enshrine the borders of a State sovereignty in cyberspace in the Constitution, international legal instruments and in the doctrine of informational security of the Russian Federation.

The article evaluates the experience of universities in accordance with the requirements of the new FSES 40.06.01 Jurisprudence (the level of training of highly qualified personnel). The empirical basis was formed by means of the conducted survey; the representativeness of the results is proved by the involvement in the survey of post-graduate students of different programmes of education, course years, and forms of education implemented at the Kutafin Moscow Law State University. (MSAL) The analysis of the results of the survey, the experience of classes with post-graduate students, work in scientific journals, membership in the dissertation councils allowed the authors to formulate a number of conclusions and suggestions. In general, they recognize the conceptual 'turnabout' of the post-graduate programme model towards the educational components as justified. However, the survey revealed the post-graduate students' desire to reduce the number of classes due to its overlap with the Master's and Specialist Degree programmes, which aims at upgrading the educational process. The article outlines some provisions aimed at changing the methodology for conducting lectures and practical classes, increasing the attention paid to the independent work of students and its forms. It is proposed to mitigate the overlap of programs at different levels through the development of additional postgraduate professional competencies, the development of which are defined in the article. The authors believe that it is possible to overcome the challenges in research by granting key characteristics to the postgraduates' research and approbation of the results. Among the main tasks are the following: the constant search for relevant forms of cooperation, involvement of post-graduate students in the research activities of the Department and the University as a whole. The authors suggest the following forms of activities to revitalize the scientific side of postgraduates' work: to make their participation in the organization of the department's scientific activities and subsequent preparation of surveys prerequisite, annual presentations at conferences (round tables, symposiums), assistance in the scientific club work, participation in scientific research projects of the department, engagement in the activities of academic centres and other "framework" structures of universities. The authors regard the preparation and the defense of the thesis beyond the curriculum as a positive trend and state that such a model will provide postgraduates with necessary time and will encourage them to dedicate the final year of their studies to the work on the thesis but not its defense. Moreover, it is stated that the main work on dissertation thesis remains in frames of the curriculum. The authors also draw attention to the important role of the 'Higher Attestation Commission List" of journals which can be chosen for the publication of the main scientific conclusions presented in the thesis. Highlighting the main directions of reforming of the said list, the authors conclude that the effective model is yet to be found.

The development of legal linguistics, interaction between linguistics and law necessitates the improvement of professional training of future lawyers. In this regard, working with legal texts is of particular importance. Looking for information in the vast stream of foreign literature requires good reading skills of a specialist. The article proves the necessity for knowledge of phonetic transcription, the rules of pronunciation, ability to work with a dictionary, ability to pronounce words correctly, since they are the basis for work with a text. The author considers the ways to achieve understanding of the content of a foreign text. For the successful translation of a text of legal nature it is not enough to know the terminology of varying legal subjects. It is necessary to apply the knowledge in special and general legal subjects as a basis for semantic and linguistic guesses. The author focuses on the inability to perform adequate translation without knowledge of lexical and grammatical peculiarities of translation techniques, because when translating from one language into another it is often about restructuring proposals, that is, changing the order of words, that is due to a number of causes of lexical and grammatical nature, for example, the nuclear of the statement. The author discusses the difficulty of translating attribute combinations, which represent a serious problem, since in most cases they also require changing the word order. The author focuses on teaching translation of the names of organizations or agencies that do not appear in the references and how to translate them into the Russian language. In this regard, it is necessary to study lexical correspondences, terminology denoting 'unknown Russian realities of legal practice', legal terms lacking equivalents, idioms enriching legal texts and creating figurativeness and general stylistics of the original text. It is shown that teaching law students to work with a text requires of a teacher special knowledge in the respective field of law, possession of special knowledge of vocabulary and the use of foreign legal terminology in a particular context.

In modern conditions it has become crucial to search for new conceptual approaches to resolving inheritance relations that entail the need to revise the basic legal concepts and theories, selection of new for modern Russia foundations of legal regulation of inheritance relations, which, in turn, leads to the revision of the strategy and the definition of the essential traits of the process of the origin and development of these relations. Inheritance has received wide coverage in the Russian Civil Law, but historical research into the processes of generation and development of genetic relationships are rare. One of the issues in the history of the inheritance law is to determine the place of Russia and Byzantium treaties in the system of sources of inheritance law. The issue is the subject of this article.

This article discusses the issues of reforming the system of higher education in the second half of the 19th century. The author analyzes the General Charter of the Imperial Russian universities, adopted during the reign of Emperor Alexander III. This Statute replaced the General Statute of the Imperial Russian universities of 1835. The article describes a system of University management, its internal and external components. The Charter declared that 'universities are under the special patronage of his Imperial Majesty and are referred to as Imperial'. The general provisions of the Charter enshrined the principles of hierarchy in the management system of universities. Senior officials were the Minister and trustee, representing the out of band management. It was the Rector who was to provide direct and continuous internal management. The general provisions enshrined the principles of unity and collegiality, stating those bodies which the Rector had to use as a guidance in the exercise of its powers. The Statute determined that 'direct management of the University belongs to the Rector, with participation when necessary of the following: a)Council, b) Board, c) Assembly and deans of faculties and g) Inspector of students with his aides'. This article analyzes the composition of the subjective educational and scientific activity of the University, the legal status of teachers and students, including their certification. The Charter of 1884 upholds the classical structure of Russian universities and specifies that 'each University consists of faculties which constitute component parts of one whole'. All taught subjects in University were allocated among science departments: History and Philology, Mathematics and Physics, Law, Medicine and the Faculty of Oriental Languages at St. Petersburg University. The faculties included Chairs as main scientific and educational units. The conceptual foundations of the General Statute of the Imperial Russian universities of 1863 contained several innovations that met the requirements of their time. The genesis of the State educational policy and University legislation is of great scientific interest and requires further historical and legal research, the primary source of which is undoubtedly the General Statute of the Imperial Russian universities, 1884.