The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding Russian scholar Dmitriy I. Meyer (1819—1856) — the ancestor of Russian civilistics who declared that the rights of individuals depend on different circumstances that are, to some extent, natural and, to some extent, historical. Meyer’s statement that “there are different degrees of insanity: sometimes it is stronger, sometimes weaker” turned out to be accepted by the Russian legislator only in 2015 by making appropriate changes in the Russian legislation regarding the problem of legal capacity of citizens. The paper has investigated the evolution of the content of legal personality of individuals in the field of private legal relations, including family relations, as well as in the field of relations complicated by a foreign element, i.e. in the field of private international law. On the basis of the analysis, the author explores a civil legal personality of a natural person category as her ability to be a subject of civil law including such elements as capacity and legal capacity. Civil capacity should be understood as a legally equal abstract opportunity for everyone to have civil rights and duties. It is unacceptable to consider capacity as a subjective right to have the right: this leads to an unjustified doubling of the category of “subjective right” and hinders a proper understanding of the mechanism of civil regulation. The article investigates the subjective right as implementation of capacity of a particular person, and, therefore, citizens being legally equal in their capacity, to be not equal in the presence of specific subjective rights that constitute the content of their capacity in the abstract form. The authors have analyzed the amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation introducing a new basis for limiting the legal capacity of citizens, as well as taking into account the degree of actual reduction of the ability of citizens to understand the meaning of their actions or to be in control of such actions. The article analyzes the conflict-of-laws principles of determination of capacity and legal capacity of foreign citizens. Jurisprudence, along with the recognition of the national regime of foreign citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation, indicates the need to apply foreign laws in determining the civil capacity and legal capacity of foreign nationals. The article analyzes the private law component of the institute of retortions the immediate purpose of which is to protect private rights and legitimate interests of Russian citizens. Thus, the content of the concept of civil personality of natural persons in the field of private law relations that consists of such categories as capacity and legal capacity evolves into the recognition of equality and the protection of the interests of all persons on the basis of the principles of justice, humanity and reasonability. At the same time, the State secures legal guarantees applied for the completion of the legal capacity of minors and certain categories of adult citizens through institutions of parental responsibility, guardianship and custody and establishes procedural guarantees of observance of the rights of these persons in judicial proceedings.

The article has analyzed the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on family disputes that involve property issues, revealed features of implementation of functions of the highest court in this field. First, it is stated that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation reviews decisions of lower courts mainly in cases where the application of family law rules is contradictory and unsettled. It is necessary to fill in a gap in family law, to resolve conflicts between certain legal norms, to choose between several possible interpretations of the law. Second, the judicial panels of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, making a determination on a particular case, clarify the meaning of legal norms, and sometimes under the guise of interpretation in fact correct ill-considered or outdated norms of family law. Third, the High Court reviews cases where there is a typical and widespread error in the application of a very clear and defined rule. Fourth, in individual legal acts it is possible to observe the concretization or change of the previously designated legal stances while maintaining the legislative rules in the same form. Using certain examples of cases considered by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on family disputes concerning property, the paper has demonstrated the mechanism of possible transformation of abstract, non-personified and doctrinally oriented provisions contained in the definitions of judicial boards of the Supreme Court to general legal regulators. The author has determined certain problems of legal regulation of property relations in the family that have not been settled by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

The main form of protection of civil rights (in the broad sense) is the form of action bringing, the impact of which has increased significantly as a result of the transition to a market economy. This form has gained even wider application with the adoption of the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation of March 8, 2015, that has introduced the institution of an administrative action in relation to cases arising from administrative and other relations regulated in the context of public law. However, the question concerning the concept of the action, regarding which in the legal science several concepts are being applied, remains unclear and the paper examines different concepts dealing with the notion of the action. In particular, according to the author, the term “action” does not mean a legal act. This view is based on the common identification of the Russian term “isk” with the Latin term actio that literally meaning “action.” The article also subjects to extensive criticism an outdated doctrine about the action in procedural and substantive senses. Attention is also drawn to the shortcomings of the doctrine that treats the action as the unity of the two parties — procedural (the applicant’s claim to the court) and substantive (the applicant’s claim to the defendant). The author has examined the inconsistency of the doctrine of the lawsuit developed by G. L. Osokina treating the action as the claim to protect a right and at the same time to admit the existence of the right to bring an action in a procedural and substantive sense. Also, the article analyzes the shortcomings of the definitions of the action given by V. V. Yarkov and O. V. Isaenkova. In conclusion, the author substantiates and gives his own definition of the concept of the action as the request addressed to court by the person concerned, submitted and considered in a certain procedural order in order to protect the violated right. The concept under consideration is also defined as the right that requires confirmation, freedom or legitimate interest and the direct exercise of the right or the satisfaction of a legitimate interest for which another person is held liable.

The paper has demonstrated that term “environmental losses” not existing in the legislation is often applied in the theory of environmental law and in law enforcement. In doctrinal sources, legal stances of higher courts, specific court decisions, “environmental losses” are used in a narrow sense. Environmental losses are associated solely with unlawful actions causing or allegedly causing harm to the environment. The paper contains the author’s definition of “environmental losses” in a broader ecological and legal contexts. The author suggests that environmental losses mean irrecoverable or long-term recoverable losses of individual components of the natural environment, natural and natural-anthropogenic objects, as well as violation of direct and reverse links between the elements of an ecological system emerging as the result of both unlawful and lawful actions of natural users or events of natural origin. A broader understanding of “environmental losses” is relevant to the environmental legal regulation of legal liability or economic regulation in the field of environmental protection. Environmental losses are classified according to the nature of the loss of a natural resource potential (absolute and relative) depending on renewability of natural resources (arising from the use of non-renewable natural resources, the long-term restoration of renewable natural resources, and the depletion of renewable natural resources). The paper has proven the importance of differentiation of environmental losses to separate rational nature management from other types of nature management and its effective legal support.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the stances developed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the content, scope, general principles of ensuring the right of access to justice, and permissible limits applied to restrict the right in question. The author has substantiated the conclusion that the European Court of Human Rights associates access to justice with Paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Thus, the concept of access to justice includes a number of elements: the right to have recourse to court; the right to have a case heard and resolved in compliance with the requirements of a fair trial; the right to have the judgment enforced; the set of safeguards that allow the person to exercise the rights under consideration effectively. According to the European Court of Human Rights, access to justice should be ensured at all stages including pre-trial (criminal) proceedings and reviewing of court decisions by higher courts. However, the right of access to justice is not absolute. The restrictions imposed must have a legitimate purpose and reasonable proportionality must be obtained between the means used and the goal determined. In view of the requirement mentioned above, the national legislation may provide for the particularities of application of Paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the Convention to proceedings in different types of courts and at different stages, for example, by establishing a certain procedure for the court to grant individuals the right to appeal to a higher court. The author has demonstrated the main directions of applying the legal stances of the European Court of Human Rights regarding access to justice to improve the Russian criminal procedural legislation and law enforcement practices, as well as for further scientific research.

The Russian criminal procedure is conservative and hardly affected by modern advances in digital technology. Outdated written proceedings are extremely resource-intensive and inefficient. Enshrinement of the regulations leading to a full implementation of the criminal proceedings in electronic format in the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation will lead to significant savings — both of materials and resources and work force, to facilitate the work of stakeholders and participants in criminal proceedings, will expedite and increase the transparency of the pretrial proceedings, simplify and reduce the cost of storage, archival and recovery of lost criminal cases. Electronic records management will simplify the creation of an electronic archive of criminal cases, so that it is possible to solve a number of forensic tasks, such as identifying crimes similar in method of commission (pattern in crime) with serial ones, committed in organized forms. The criminal cases stored in the electronic archive can be used to train investigators in the methods of investigation and preparation of procedural documents. Analyzing the experience of electronic records management application in different countries, the author comes to the conclusion that all the technologies necessary for the digitalization of criminal proceedings have already been developed, are available and widely distributed. The developed technical solutions are universal and can be applied to the digitalization of criminal proceedings, regardless of their type, belonging to the legal family, legal traditions of a particular state. The introduction of electronic record-keeping requires, however, certain changes in the Russian criminal procedure. No digitalization is possible until the legislator recognizes the evidence as information rather than a formally defined document and equates the file to a protocol. The use of new technologies for recording evidentiary information will require the development of new technical and procedural means to ensure the admissibility of such evidence.

Doctrinal study of procedural aspects of recovery of damage caused by a crime against intellectual property is of great importance both for the resolution of specific criminal cases, and for generalization and uniformity of law enforcement practice, as well as for legislative improvement of existing criminal procedure rules governing the mechanism of compensation for damage caused by crimes. However, the effectiveness of the institution is reduced due to problems of law enforcement and shortcomings of legislation. Proposals to improve the mechanisms of recovery of damage caused by crimes against intellectual property need theoretical justification based on the study of modern law enforcement practice. Courts in civil lawsuits for crimes against intellectual property often allow violations of procedural rights that remain unresolved. the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation contains a number of gaps in this part: specific cases and limits of application of norms of the Civil Procedural Code of the Russian Federation to claims in criminal cases are not specified. They could be defined in the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation through references to specific articles (parts, items) of the Civil Procedural Code. The paper is aimed at conceptualization of procedural aspects of recovery of damage caused by a crime in relation to encroachments on intellectual property objects, which implies a doctrinal justification of the need to make additions to the criminal procedure legislation.

The paper considers viewpoints on the stages of social development. It is based on the position of E. Toffler, who distinguishes three stages: agricultural, industrial and informational. The concept of sanctions is given as a measure of influence on the subjects of law, the purpose of which is either to suppress, eliminate, condemn undesirable actions (negative sanctions), or to stimulate desirable behavior (positive sanctions). Sanctions in law are analyzed in an evolutionary way, that is, in relation to the mentioned periods of development of society. In agrarian society, the death penalty was the main type of punishment, as society and the government itself were not notable for humanity. The society kept growing: since the XVIII century the barbaric ways of its implementation began to disappear, and since the twentieth century the process of abolition of death penalty began in many countries. In an industrial society, the main burden falls on the deprivation of liberty. But with the development of society, the amount of imprisonment sentences has reduced and replaced by less stringent sanctions (fines, mandatory work). In the information society the nature of sanctions is changing dramatically: 1) the physical impact on offenders is replaced by mental; 2) the negative impact on the subjects of law gradually gives way to a positive impact on them. The paper analyzes in detail the sanctions in the information society: 1) deprivation/non-provision of work; 2) forced publicity (defamation) as the placement of negative information in the public space, which is associated with the loss of reputation; 3) promotion as a measure of influence on the subject, associated with the onset of favorable consequences for him, applied for merits in achieving particularly significant results. All types of incentive sanctions are considered: material incentives; moral incentive, which aims to provide a person with increased attention, recognition, respect, raising his authority; provision of benefits, i.e. certain advantages, additional rights; reward for outstanding services.

The trial against Karlsruhe criminal police Secretary Adolf Rube, held in 1949, was the first trial in Germany, during which Nazi atrocities committed on the territory of Belarus were considered. By the example of this process, the paper attempts to identify the specifics of West Germany courts’ consideration of criminal cases related to the commission of Holocaust crimes in Eastern Europe. German law excluded the possibility of punishing Nazi criminals for genocide, crimes against peace and humanity. Guided by the norms of the German Criminal Code of 1871, German justice considered each case of murder of Jews during the years of national socialism as a separate crime, caused by personal motives. Based on this, A. Rube was punished not for participating in the state-organized, bureaucratically planned genocide of the Jewish people, but for committing separate, unrelated murders. The defendant, who was accused of killing 436 Jews in the Minsk ghetto, was found guilty of unlawfully depriving 27 people of their lives and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, in 1962 he was amnestied and was released. By presenting the Holocaust as a mosaic of individual, unrelated criminal acts, German justice maintained the illusion that "normal" Germans "knew nothing" about the mass extermination of Jews, that the Holocaust was solely the product of the Hitler’s actions, his fanatical entourage, and individual "pathological sadists," "sex maniacs," and "upstarts" such as A. Rube, who sought to assert themselves at the expense of Jewish victims.

Taking into account the generally accepted view that competition in the market brings positive results in terms of pricing, production and resource use, it should be noted that government intervention is able to improve the functioning of markets and thus promote reasonable, sustainable and inclusive growth. For the R&D and innovation sphere is characterized by the inefficiency of the market mechanism, because usually market participants do not take into account the positive external effects of the use of this direction, considering it less significant in comparison with others. Similarly, R&D and innovation projects are hampered by funding or lack of coordination among market actors. Thus, government assistance in R&D and innovation can be compatible with the rules of the internal (common) market. It can be expected that government support reduces market failures in this area and will facilitate the implementation of an important project of common European interest, will promote the development of certain economic activities, where the subsequent distortions of competition and trade will not be contrary to the common interest.

The paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of tax initiatives on the introduction of an excise tax on carbonated sweet drinks and red meat products, a fee for the use of plastic utensils and a new special tax regime for self-employed. Based on the complexity and diversity of the issues and in order to ensure the reliability of the conclusions and proposals the paper analyzes the problem in various aspects using an interdisciplinary approach: 1) in the context of topical problems of social development; 2) from the point of view of solving systemic problems of taxation in the Russian Federation and improving its legal regulation; 3) for compliance with the principles of taxation and the economic and legal essence of taxes and fees; 4) in the light of ensuring budget profitability and reducing financial costs. When considering the development of effective mechanisms of legalization, the authors proceeded from the need to ensure the unconditional constitutional obligation to pay taxes and fees, the mandatory application of penalties against defaulters, the inadmissibility of replacing the principle of obligation with the principle of voluntariness: the performance of the constitutional duty cannot be made exclusively dependent on civic consciousness and social responsibility, on the availability of various preferences. The authors are convinced that when applying incentive mechanisms, it is necessary to distinguish between non-payers and payers, without allowing the latter to be put in a worse position. The study resultes in the conclusion on the strengthening of legal regulation in terms of ensuring the mandatory tax liability, about the increase of the responsibility of legislators in the implementation of the principles of taxation in order to avoid the adoption of legal norms that contradict them.