On the basis of scientific and philosophical views, the author describes approaches to the concept, understanding and improvement of legal consciousness presented as expansion and exaltation that are carried out horizontally and vertically and aimed at achieving the completeness of the concept and its understanding. Completeness of the notion of legal consciousness is related to its fullness of historical knowledge concerning the past state and law phenomena stored in memory and their present determination by the current mental thought. In order to understand legal consciousness, it is necessary to recognize the inherent unity of spiritual and material aspects of the existence of the State and law, peculiarities of their manifestations in the past, their present and future life anticipated by a supermental thought. Understanding of the meaning of the State and law and the truth of its existence is related to the unity of the spiritual and the material. At the horizontal level, the physical consciousness is being perfected, which is the result of a mental activity reflecting the State and law phenomena in their material existence. Individualism and egoism are associated with the material existence in their infinite division and separation. The physical consciousness is represented by a common consciousness, based on an instinctive, emotional perception, and an intellectual consciousness based on thinking that has a conceptual form of expression. In the vertical dimension, improvement is carried out through the interaction of all mental and supermental processes. The interaction of consciousness with the unconscious, the sensual and the instinctive provides a synthesis of knowledge and feeling manifested in a feeling-knowledge. The interaction of the logical with the intuitive, the combination of logic and intuition synthesizing the feeling-knowledge facilitates self-knowledge, leads to understanding, and contributes to the rise of the intellectual consciousness to superintellectual consciousness that combines the multitude in thoughts, constructs the model of the whole in the understanding. This approach to the consideration of the legal consciousness makes it possible to identify its new creative opportunities and to use them in theoretical studies to determine the meaning of state-legal life, to determine the true principles of its just formation and righteous rule.

The paper provides thorough analysis of the understanding of law principles in the modern Russian doctrine. The author states that there are three main approaches to the concept: 1) A relatively renewed doctrine of norm-principles revealing the most general patterns at certain points of time and their alteration in accordance with the demands of a certain historical phase; 2) A practical approach expressed in recognition of numerous clauses of basic principles of civil legislation listed in Art. 1 of the Russian Civil Code and further practical analysis of certain aspects of their implementation in courts' practice and jurisprudence; 3) recognition of the principles of law as a particular phenomenon having objective and self-sufficient character, specific genesis and special meaning of law understanding and law implementation. The author criticizes first two approaches for excessive positivism, inability to distinguish principles of law from law norms, and, in its basis, omitting the leading role of principles in legal system, or, on the other side, - substitution of law principles by ideologemes. At the same time, the author admits the significance of the third approach and believes that the future of the civil law doctrine and jurisprudence will depend on it.

Objectives pursued in an adversarial civil process should comply with the principles of the rule-of-law State. Objectives pursued in civil proceedings include, inter alia, a universal objective to eliminate obstacles to the enjoyment of rights, freedoms and legitimate interests. The objectives can be classified by being divided into original and derivative. The original objectives form the basis of a civil case and the derivative objectives are implemented as a result of the case proceedings. Objective right protection belongs to derivative objectives. This objective cannot serve as a basis for a civil action in court without being associated with the protection of a subjective right. Implementation of an objective to resolve a dispute requires a special procedural regime for dealing with labor, housing and family matters where the parties are joined by local social and legal environment that continues to exist after the court passes a decision. In particular, it is possible to engage public authorities responsible for the protection of relevant rights of citizens and to impose on them, in exceptional cases, the duty to exercise control over observance of the rights of citizens during a certain period of time after a court decision has been made to satisfy the claim. The task of protecting the rights belonging to individuals does not exclude seeking truth from objectives of the adversarial civil procedure. Thus, the notion of "fair trial" should be included in Procedural Law. At the same time, there are no reasons to use the notion of "fair trial" in Procedural Lw, since it results in the possibility of countering procedural law with substantive law. Procedural equality, which forms a prerequisite for the implementation of objectives of the adversarial civil procedure, inherently incorporates equality of possibilities to exercise procedural rights. Therefore, a justified derogation from the equality of procedural rights does not amount to an exception to the principle of procedural equality. Inequality of parties in their procedural rights and opportunities may be expressed in the form of property benefits, procedural preferences and procedural advantages. Procedural advantages of one of the parties require the court to use the mechanisms to equalize the procedural capacity of all parties involved.

Coercion in criminal law is a sufficiently concise category with different legal incarnations in the law. The study highlights only one aspect of coercion that is legislatively enshrined as a mandatory element of separate offenses. The starting point of the presented reasoning is that, under coercion, a person chooses a line of conduct seeking to avoid adverse and unfavorable consequences for himself or his loved ones, or he is largely deprived of an opportunity to choose a line of conduct. In other words, an offender committing coercion as a crime is interested in the person's conduct rather than in his personality or property: an offender seeks to steer the former in the right direction. Coercion from the point of view of certain offenses covered by the Special Part of the RF Criminal Code is doctrinally considered either as a method of committing a crime or as a socially dangerous act. Following these assumptions, the author subjects coercion to the analysis as it is presented in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation primarily in terms of correctness of some forms of coercion and the consequences for the legislative text, as well as in terms of acts criminality of which is excluded by certain elements. Based on the analysis of the objective side of offenses provided for in Art. 120,133,147,149,179,184, 240, 302, 309 and 333 of the RF Criminal Code the author concludes that "coercion " as a socially dangerous act is frequently used but unsuccessful in terms of the criminal law theory method of legislative technique. From this perspective, coercion can only form a means of committing a crime rather than a socially dangerous act.

The purpose of the Paper is to analyze the current system of crimes against sexual freedom and sexual inviolability in the context of the Explanatory Note to Article 131 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The Explanatory Note contains Requirements to qualify dissolute acts (Para 2-4 of Article 135 of the RF Criminal Code), sexual intercourse and other acts of a sexual nature (Para 3-5 Article 134 of the RF Criminal Code) committed against persons under the age of twelve in accordance with Article 131(4)(b) or Article 132(4) as rape or sexual assault, i.e. the most dangerous sexual offenses, which gives rise to various assessments. The mere transformation of qualification of the acts in question is defined by the introduction of the so-called "age of absolutely unacceptable consent" of a person to engage in sexual intercourse or other sexual activity. In revealing the effects of the transformation, the author shows that now Chapter 18 of the RF Criminal Code contains two systems of crimes against minors, namely, a complete and truncated systems. The truncated system has been formed due to recognizing the sexual offenses committed against persons under the age of twelve as violent. This approach is far from being obvious. The second research issue is associated with the evaluation of normative grounds of compliance the provisions contained in the Explanatory Note with the provisions of Article 8 of the RF Criminal Code. The establishment of the grounds is complicated because the text of the Explanatory Note combines at least two Articles of Chapter 18 of the RF Criminal Code. It is necessary to evaluate the conformity of the characteristics of the act with the characteristics of an objective and subjective elements of non-violent sexual intercourse, certain acts of sexual nature or dissolute acts, i.e. any offense under Articles 134 or 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Then, on the ground of the victim's helpless condition it is possible to qualify the act under Article 131(4)(b) of the RF Criminal Code or Article 132(4)(b) of the RF Criminal Code. The issues of qualification are being dealt with in the light of Recommendations determined in the Decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 4, 2014, № 16 "On Court practice in cases involving crimes against sexual integrity and sexual freedom of the individual» that did not, however, deal with some complicated cases. Lack of recommendations is particularly obvious concerning the qualification of dissolute acts committed against persons under the age of twelve in accordance with Article 132 of the RF Criminal Code.

In this article, the author analyses the problems associated with current differences between the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in interpreting the rules relating to the protection of rights and freedoms of Russian citizens. The paper deals with the approaches that have developed in domestic and foreign science and jurisprudence to the applicability of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in the territory of Russia in the context of safeguarding the State sovereignty and protecting constitutional order (if there is a conflict between such decisions and the national Constitution). The author provides examples of in which European countries and how the issues are resolved when the decision of the European Court of Human Rights contradicts the constitutional orders in the countries. The article provides an assessment of the legal standing of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation concerning the balance between the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as well as the law that authorized the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation to make decisions concerning the recognition and enforcement of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It is noted that this Federal Law was ambiguously perceived by domestic and foreign scholars. Individual scholars and lawyers had welcomed the adoption of the Law in the context of the fact that Russia remained under the jurisdiction of the European Court and its decisions remain binding for Russia. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation concerning the Decision of the European Court in the case Anchugov and Gladkov v. Russia," elucidates the views of a number of renowned scholars supporting the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, as well the legal standing of the opponents of the decision of the Constitutional Court. The author concludes that a balance must be struck between the European values expressed in the approaches of the European Court of Human Rights and the traditional values of the Russian society and the State embodied in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The article proposes certain ways of overcoming contradictions arising between the inter-state bodies of human rights judicial protection and the supreme body of constitutional review by means of improving the legislative framework for the implementation of the Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Russia and by different mechanisms for adjusting the text of the Russia's Fundamental Law.

The article deals with the problems of taking into account the principles of punishment by the courts and reflections of these principles in the court decisions when providing reasons for the sentence. It is noted that in the theory of criminal law the question of the principles of sentencing is debatable, and the explanations of taking them into account in the decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation are too short and controversial. Thus, to a large extent, the author's examination of the sentences passed by the regional courts of Omsk and Omsk region reveals errors when the judges take into account the principles of imposing a punishment. An analysis of the jurisprudence concerning the courts imposing punishments within the limits of the sanctions of the norms under the Special Part of the RF Criminal Code shows that in the absolute majority of cases the courts impose a penalty of deprivation of liberty and a fine at the minimum or near the middle level of sanctions. The same trend continues with regard to the crimes for which the law-maker has strengthened the punishment. The author disagrees with the standing of the Plenum of the Supreme Court expressed in the Decision of the RF December 22, 2015 № 58 "Imposition of Criminal Punishment by the Courts of the Russian Federation" with regard to the criteria determining the nature and extent of the public danger of the crime. It is argued that the nature of the public danger of the crime depends on the object of infringement, the nature of the criminal consequences and forms of fault, and the degree of public danger depends on the amount of harm or the gravity of the consequences, the method of the crime, the role of the defendant in the commission of a crime of complicity, the type of intent and negligence, the motive of crime, the extent to which the criminal intent has been implemented. The most important features for the full personal profile of the culprit include: Socio-demographic data, moral and psychological characteristics, psychophysiological data, legal status of the individual. The author justifies the inclusion of Articles 60¹ "Imposing a Sentence on the Account of the Nature and Degree of Public Danger of the Crime" and 60² "Imposing a Sentence on the Basis of Personality of the Offender. " In order for the courts to give the most complete consideration of mitigating and aggravating circumstances when imposing a sentence, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation must establish special rules for imposing a sentence with due regard to all mitigating and aggravating circumstances.

The work is devoted to the analysis of the method as a means of integration, reception and means aimed at solving problems and realizing the objectives of legal convergence, the main of which is the achievement of convergence, the convergence of the legal systems of the States with varying degrees of concretization. Processes of convergence and universalization of legal regulation in international law are implemented by means of different methods such as standardization, harmonization, model of norm-setting and the most advanced method of integration. In convergence processes, international law plays a leading role as a necessary legal denominator for the legal systems of the States. The first step towards building a unified legal space is the harmonization together with its relevant method; then follows the legal harmonization and standard-setting model that is much closer to the designated purpose; after that, the integration era comes for those ready for alliances and reduction of sovereignty. The term "integration" is multifaceted and, in the most general terms, applicable to the characterization of convergence processes taking place alongside the process of divergence. The integration itself is of social nature. The study of the integration problems in the framework of international law relates to the understanding of the realization of integration processes and their causes, forms, goals, and seeks to identify common trends connected with the causes, the determinative facts, the main features of this phenomenon. In international law, integration is a higher level of interaction between States and other actors, when participants of the process alienates a portion of their sovereignty to supranational bodies. Integration as a method so far has not undergone any serious research within the science of international law. The author suggests his own understanding of the term integration and related categories.

The article through the prism of the international responsibility analyzes the first decision of the EEU court rendered on the Interstate dispute on the question of compliance by the Member States of their obligations under the law of the Eurasian Economic Union. The author provides both the positive aspects of the decision, namely to clarify the court opinion on a number of important provisions of the law of the Union, and critical remarks thereof. These concern, firstly, the use of the court's original, but not very successful, from the legal point of view, wording 'fulfillment' not in full; and secondly, the willful abandonment of judicial act outside the scope of any factual information. This, on the one hand, turned the decision on the controversial case into, in fact, advisory opinion, and on the other hand, deprived the court of a good opportunity to contribute to the discussion regarding the delineation of completed and continuing acts, which matters both for issues of admissibility of cases in terms of the conditions ratione temporis, and from the point of view of the international responsibility (including determining the effects of violations -cessation or restitution). The article suggests that the court still should consider the admissibility of the case in terms of temporal jurisdiction. It concluded that there was such because of the unfinished (continuing) at the time of entry into force the EEU Treaty because of the nature of the alleged violation of the rules on the mutual recognition of decisions of the Customs authorities.

This article deals with the question of legal consequences for parties to a trans-border agreement on the disposal of exclusive copyrights in case of non-conformity of national law requirements on the fundamental terms of the contract. The author examines the "non-conclusion" and "invalidity" of the agreement. Other terms and conditions (in addition to fundamental) of the agreement are considered.

The article defines the concept and structure of the administrative and legal framework for the protection of land relations in Russia and Ukraine. The mechanism is defined as a system of legal means and ways to implement and safeguard the rights of subjects of land sold by the Executive authority on the basis of administrative legal norms. It is concluded that the administrative and legal support for land protection includes the definition and development of the legal basis for positive regulation and principles, such institutes as land system protection, land as part of the environment, protection of land resources from unlawful encroachments, human security and the prevention of land law offences. Special attention is given to the characteristic of concepts and types of land offences which fall under administrative responsibility according to the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation and the Code of Administrative Offences of Ukraine. Land offence is defined as guilty, wrongful act or omission of an act that is contrary to the law of the land resource management, impedes the enjoyment of the rights and legitimate interests of land owners and violates the order established by the State land administration as a national treasure. Land offences which are subject to administrative responsibility under the Ukrainian legislation, taking into account the regional composition, are divided into three groups: committed by officials, by officials and citizens, by citizens only. The Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation does not provide a single chapter for the elements of land offences subject to administrative responsibility; they are covered in several chapters. It is emphasized that administrative responsibility is a legal phenomenon, a form of State law enforcement: it seeks to protect law and order and restore social justice. The purpose of administrative responsibility stated indirectly in its functions: penalty (punitive) and preventive. It is found that there is no single body competent to deal with all cases on administrative offences in the sphere of use and protection of land, neither in Russia, nor in Ukraine. There is a system of such bodies. The main feature of administrative remedies for land relations is the lack of consistency in the absence of adequate communication between the different actors (public authorities, public officials, local governments, judges, etc.).

The problem of ensuring and protecting labour rights of workers have always been topical and required some improvement. This article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the remedies for labour rights and interests of employees set forth by legislation of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. Recently, Russian scholars have paid much attention to the study of the modern law of the People's Republic of China and its legislation, including the labour one. However, the issues of legal regulation of Chinese law protecting labour rights of workers have barely been covered, as well as the comparative analysis of such a regulation. The Chinese legal system is quite specific, which Russian scientific legal community continiously notes. China is characterized by consolidating a lasting ideological and theoretical foundation, which includes such methodological principles as 'Man is Foundation ', the concept of morality-based management, and concept of management on the basis of the law. At present, Chinese legislator has set a primary task of improving the entire system of legislation, as evidenced by the analysis of the history of the development of the legislation in China, including labour law. The study of legislation of the People's Republic of China contributes to a more complete and comprehensive understanding of China's current problems and processes, and simultaneously requires targeted comparative legal studies. The study of the labour legislation of China shows that it, giving priority to efficiency and result, does not neglect the protection of workers' rights. Analyzing Russia's labour legislation, the author notes that judicial protection constitutes a kind of public and legal protection. In view of this, the author concludes that it is necessary to establish labour courts as part of the ongoing judicial reform in the Russian Federation. The analysis of the Chinese law on the issue identified peculiarities of ways to protect labour rights and interests of employees, established by the legislation of the People's Republic of China, in particular, the presence of mandatory pre-trial order solving labour disputes, regardless of the subject matter of the dispute. The previous Labour Code of the RSFSR also enshrined the pre-trial procedure for settling individual labour dispute categories.

The article deals with one of the most popular modern destructive youth subcultures - criminal subculture, which in recent years gained popularity under the acronym "A. U. E." among the Russian youth, from the position for the necessity to amend domestic legislation to prevent its further dissemination. Particular emphasis is given to the question of popularization of criminal subcultures among young people and the involvement of individual members in criminal activities via the Internet, which requires new approaches to the development of preventive measures in respect of the phenomenon in question. The authors explore the methods for the spread of the subculture promoting criminal lifestyle, through modern technology, information resources, covering huge audience and requiring minimal time and financial investments to get a maximum destructive effect, as well as the process of involving young people in its system of values, promoting traditions, customs and beliefs of the criminal world.

This article discusses some aspects of the impact of the ancient holism on the modern theory of constitutional law. The concept of an ideal state of Plato and Aristotle called for respect for the balance between the individual and society, the abilities of the individual and public interests. Philosophers have not opposed the society and the State, but sought to develop the theoretical basis of the harmonious state of all social institutions for development policy. The teaching of ancient Greek thinkers on holism is still valid and can be used to explain the main processes of the modern theory of constitutional law. The study justifies the advantages of holism as a methodological nucleus in regulating individual institutions of the State and law before reductional approach. Among the advantages of holism as methodology are the possibility of tiered application; congruence of scientific knowledge with a diversity of the research objects of such integrated science as a constitutional law; orientation to the systematic study of objects. Consideration is being given to the possibility of applying a holistic approach (with its recognition of the integrity of the process and the priority of Unity) to solve some multilevel tasks of law. Special attention is paid to the analysis of contemporary array of human rights from the perspective of ancient holism. Rethinking of the role of the State and the law is closely connected with the desire to create an efficient constitutional system in terms of finding the right balance of public and private interests. The author raises the question of considering the developed in ancient Greece category of "common good" as one of the fundamental concepts of modern axiology.

Reforming of the criminal procedure and the achievement of the goals of judicial reform cannot be regarded as successful without the conversion of the pre-trial proceedings in a criminal case, a strong tradition in domestic legislation and enforcement. The repeated adjustments made in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation concerning the legal regulation of pre-trial proceedings, are of mostly fragmentary and unsystematic nature. This shows that the legislator has no coherent ideas about what criminal proceeding should be like in Russia and in what direction it should go. There is also a protracted discussion in the scientific world about ways to improve prior investigation, which raise serious concerns, as numerous proposals for reforming this process does not add up to a coherent system in view of the fact that they sometimes are too diverse and affect several "cracks" of preliminary investigation. The developers of the concept of judicial reform in the Russian Federation, arguing about the expansion of the principle of controversy in the criminal proceedings, rightly tied this important direction of the reform with the preliminary investigation, which is much less adversarial. In this regard, the authors propose the idea of creating such an investigative structure, which should be consistent with the principle of adversarial proceedings. At the same time, it is the investigator who must be a central and independent of administrative seniors figure. This idea is of explicitly dualistic nature, as the authors of the concept proposed two ways of forming the adversarial investigation: either through the establishment of the Investigative Committee as prosecutorial service, or through the institution of investigating judges in the judicial office. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has been functioning for many years, but the introduction of the figure of the investigating judge is being debated among both practitioners and academics.