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Legal thought: history and contemporarity
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4–17
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There are major changes in modern systems and methods of legal regulation across the world. Thelaw does not lose its role and becomes an even more powerful mechanism for regulating and shapingnew states in society and the state. This is due largely to the use of the concept of “legal space”, which allows reflecting the processes of globalization and strengthening of the sovereignty of states. Withits help, there is possibility to analyze new areas of legal regulation through various legal regulatorsand maintain the stability and flexibility of legal boundaries. The article deals with the types of legalspaces (economic, informational, etc.) and arising disputes for the different countries. There is theprocess of multi-vector development of law, when instead of one-dimensional development, there isthe influence of such vectors as the mobile sphere and the scope of legal regulation, multi-layered,influence of institutionalization and technization, gaps between law-making and law enforcement.In the focus of multidimensionality there are the initial correlations between national internationalacts, localization and self-regulation. The normative flow is followed by the chaotic legal phenomenadestroying legal space. It causes to look for ways of mutual influence of national and international lawand order, to find resistance to violence and to strengthen alignment mechanisms. National regime isa component of international regime due to common values, shared solutions of global challenges,balance of different interests, stable functioning of institutions, peaceful resolution of disputes andconflicts. The world order and the basis of contemporary law are formed in difficult conditions ofcooperation and confrontation of various social forces. |
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18–30
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The founders of the comparative system approach to the study of law (among the first wereAmerican R. Schlesinger, French R. David and M. Ancel, later Germans H. Kotz and K. Zweigert, ItalianR. Sacco, Canadian P. Glenn, etc.) at the turn of the 1960–1970s have made a breakthrough in legalscience. They have completed building the ground of a new direction of comparative legal research,identified and analyzed various legal commonalities of the past and present referring to them as familiesor systems (Anglo-Saxon, Romano-German, Socialist, Muslim, etc.). Many Russian authors still followthis terminology. The terms “legal system” and “legal family” are often used as similar, the concepts ofsystem and family are not given as a rule. The Anglo-Saxon legal family and totalitarian socialist legalsystem belong to the same classification unit. The article suggests a new approach and a synthesis oflegal systems. The author uses the methods of historical, logical, deductive, inductive and comparativestudy, formational-civilizational approach and, on this basis, identifies three major legal systems inthe contemporary world: Muslim (1.7 billion people), liberal semi-social capitalist system (applies tomore than 4.5 billion people, including many developing countries) and the totalitarian socialist system(1.5 billion people). When selecting legal families, the traditional approach of comparative law is used,but considering the social and cultural legal features. On this basis, within each of the global systemslegal families differ. In the system of Muslim law, there is fundamentalist Muslim law (radikalist) andmodern (advanced) legal family. There are classifications differ in Sunni and Shiite legal families,liberal semi-social capitalist system includes Anglo-Saxon family, Romano-German and other families(modern researchers call in particular Latin-American, Scandinavian families, etc.), in the totalitariansocialist system, there is orthodox and partially modernized families. |
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31–45
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Professor Leon (Lev) Petrazycki contributed significantly to the methodology of law and economics and made Russian legal science famous in Germany with the publication Die Lehre von Eienkommen in 1893 and 1895. The book developed the idea that the influence of legal norms should be evaluated not only from the private view but from the point of national economy. Professor Petrazycki and his students Pitirim Sorokin and George Guins may be ranked among the founders of the economic analysis of law established in 20th century, which was shown earlier in the monograph Pravo i ekonomika (metodologiya) by the author of the paper. The idea of externalism is based on the principle that social and economic factors, i.e. extra scientific make a decisive influence on the development of science. Hence, in studying the history of science, the major task is reconstructing social and cultural conditions (social service) promoting to the development of ideas and theories. The opposite, internalist, approach promotes the idea that science develops only due to inner scientific factors — on the basis of objective logic and of arising and solving economic problems, thanks to the evolution of scholar traditions, create new concepts, solve problems etc. Law has developed two types of argumentation externalist and internalist. Legal positivism calls for the strict adherence to the norms of positive law and excludes other arguments — sociological, economic, moral, historical ones in resolving legal disputes. This is the internalist approach showing the separation of legal space from others (economic, moral etc.). In this regard, the politics of law is something external in terms of law, and the area is intended for politicians. The external type of argumentation allows avoiding extremes and formalism for legal concept. This area of legal science is characterized with open ways of argumentation — sociological and statistical facts, economic rationale, moral arguments. A high idealistic dream of external jurisprudence is in the following: it is necessary to achieve three criteria for legal decisions: legality, efficiency, fairness. |
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46–58
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The article analyses the different sources of religious legal systems, principally the sources of the canon law of the Christian church, and it discovers a common paradigm shared by the seemingly different sources of different religious legal systems developed within the Judeo-Christian Biblical legal tradition. The author analyses, on the one hand, the decretal letters of the popes, which formed the main part of the medieval corpus of canon law in the Western Church; and, on the other hand, the writings of the Holy Fathers in conjunction with the imperial legislation and the canons of the Church Councils in the Eastern Church. This analysis elucidates a common paradigm for both traditions of canon law, which may be characterized as an ‘authoritative-instructive’ paradigm. The article shows that the instructive ‘pole’ within that paradigm is a distinctive feature of a religious legal system as such, and goes on to demonstrate its existence in the predecessor of the Christian legal tradition—Jewish law--and to outline similar features in such sources of Jewish law as rabbinic rulings, the King’s Law (the enactments of secular rulers in the context of the Halakha) and the responsa. The key point is that the common paradigm expresses itself in a seemingly different manner mostly in response to external factors—the political, social, and cultural differences between the societies in which each respective system of religious law operates—and not because of religious or theological differences in the actual teachings of the religious legal systems. |
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59–72
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From logical point of view, it is worth discussing problem of legal gaps that is very important in the analysis of legal systems.The article belows contributes to the the analisys of so-called legal gaps from the perspective of deontic logic. In the beginning of the paper, after discussing certain properties of legal systems — completeness, consistency and contingency — on the basis of analytical methodology of legal positivism based on Dworkin-Hart’s debate about closure rules, in is describing different types of closure rules, which are employed for closing the legal systems. The paper compares the similarities and differences between different approaches to the studies of legal gaps. It is found that similarities between logical modalities and types of legalism makes possible to extend analysis of closure rules by introducing deontic modalities; the article explores the perspectives of such analysis. We introduce logical principles underlying two main types of legalism — Anglo-Saxon and continential ones. Drawning upon the basic principles of modal logic, we briefly sketch the prior history, development and current state of studies in the field of deontic logic. The paper suggests that it should be possible to develop a deontic assessement of the closure rules in legal systems; the first goal of the paper is achieved by spelling out differences between deontic modalities in open and closed legal systems.The final section of the paper is dedicated to analysis of deontic modalities employed for generating such closure rules. |
Russian law: conditions, perspectives, commentaries
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73–82
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The article presents the forms of systematization of tax legislation. It explains the substance and object-matter, juridical and economical goals, tasks and challenges of the systematization of tax legislation. As contemporary challenge of the systematization of tax legislation, the article emphasizes the role of the economic unions, in particular Eurasian Economic Union and its related objectives of harmonization and unification of tax legislation among member-states. It defines the notions of harmonization and unification, provides examples and explains the differences between harmonization and unification. The article informs who is in charge of coordination of harmonization and unification of tax regulation among post-Soviet countries. As another challenge of systematization of tax legislation, the study identifies those areas in tax regulation, which remain unresolved at the legislative level despite the constant attention given to them by law enforcement institutions. As an example of such issue, the article discusses the presumption of good faith of the taxpayer in tax relations. The research examines the forms of systematization of tax legislation, in particular, it discusses incorporation, consolidation and codification as forms of systematization of tax legislation. Besides, the article considers different views of researchers regarding including inventory and preparation of a body of law as a separate and distinct forms of systematization. The article defines incorporation, gives its examples, explains the difference between formal and informal incorporation. Furthermore, the study introduces consolidation and gives definition, explains how it differs from other forms of systematization of tax legislation and provides examples of consolidation. As a last form of systemization of tax legislation, the article examines codification. First, the study defines codification, indicates the distinction of codification from other forms of systemization of tax legislation. Afterwards, the study discusses goals and legal definition of codification in different legal acts. As a last part of the research, the article analyzes in detail codification as a form of systematization of tax legislation in the Russian Federation. |
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83–96
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At the international level, uncertainty still remains over the issues of currency and legal responsibility,which is largely due to various legal regulations. Beginning with 2018, the European Union will bringinto force new rules for calculating the liquidity of banks and the ratio of borrowed funds and assetsthat change its monetary policy. Not everyone is happy with the new rules. Several large Frenchbanks even have appealed to the European Court of Justice for a change in the rules. According tostatements by financial analysts, the European Central Bank is on the verge of abandoning the ultrasoftmonetary policy in the direction of neutral and is further preparing for tightening it. In most cases,companies that carry out foreign economic activity violate currency legislation. At the same time, civilmeasures may not be sufficient to protect the normal functioning and development of the domesticforeign exchange market. For this reason, the laws of the Russian Federation provide for liabilityfor non-repatriation of funds. However, not all countries today establish this kind of responsibility.Meanwhile, due to the revival of the idea of private money in the form of cryptocurrencies andother modern monetary surrogates the question of how to protect the national economy in modernconditions requires separate analysis. Therefore, the urgency of searching for common approachesto currency regulation is growing. The subject of the paper is a monetary system and monetaryrelations from the point of view of analyzing contemporary problems of ensuring its stability,including criminal legal means. The purpose of such an analysis is to show clearly which mechanismsof protection of the domestic foreign exchange market are being applied at present and with whatproblems the monetary system is facing today. The article is prepared on the basis of the technicalanalysis of legal norms, the comparative legal method, the method of system analysis, the formallogical method. According to the authors, such an analysis would contribute to a uniform approachto the problem, without which it will be extremely difficult to achieve success. It is concluded that inview of new challenges in the world economy and the emergence of the crypto currency, it is nownecessary to rethink the phenomenon of currency crimes, to study the experience of combatingmonetary crimes in other countries and to assess the overall mechanisms. |
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97–110
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Most securities provide effective opportunities for investing money capital in order to increase it,at the same time, they are the legal priority of investments. On the one hand, issuing securities,organizations attract funds for the development of their entrepreneurial activities. On the other hand,for purchasers, securities, above all, a way of generating income, usually without active participation,without difficulty in the organization itself. Attraction of securities (capital) and investments of capital(citizenship of securities) are joined by civil-legal, financial and economic relations that regulatethe issue of securities. The carriers of these conditions are the securities themselves. This is theircorrectness, if the securities are on all the time before the end of the period of use to get rid of it.However, the main value of securities is that they are investors who can participate in special, moreactive and diversified relationships and transactions that are based on the conditions and contentof securities. If the movement of bank credit capital, the credit and credit organization will be one oranother amount of money capital, then the relationship of the investor and the organization issuingsecurities are built on the securities themselves. For each security there is capital, namely, moneyinvested in productive, useful purposes, working within the framework of some entrepreneurial orsocially useful activity. By selling a security, the previous owner thereby gives access to securities totake his place as an investor in this financial and economic sense. Leaving his place as an investor,the seller of a security «Quality», it is invariably guaranteed by the issuer that issued the security. Inthis article, the authors examine the securities taking into account their ability to simultaneously actin the trade aspect of the financial and economic interest and the object of civil law relations. |
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111–127
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One of the important guarantees of the defendant’s rights in civil proceedings is the institution ofcounterclaim. The right to submit a counterclaim is the subjective right of a person who is broughtto trial by the court in accordance with the initial lawsuit. Despite the seemingly rather detailedregulation of the institution of counterclaim, in practice some issues remain unsolved. The articlesets out the question whether the defendant can use this means of protection of its rights in thecase of participation of the international intergovernmental organization as a plaintiff. This issue isvery important, in particular from the point of view of choosing the tactics of defense in the judicialprocess. Based on the analysis of international agreements, including those with the participationof Russia, the author comes to the conclusion that an international organization must be recognizedas renounced judicial immunity with respect to a counterclaim, directly related to the initial one,if this organization has sued to the Russian court. If there is a mutual connection, a counterclaimto an international organization must be considered together with the original claim, without anyadditional conditions, regardless of considerations of procedural economy. Consideration by a courtof a counterclaim to an international plaintiff organization within the framework of process that hasalready begun to a greater extent provides for convenient and timely protection of the defendant’srights as an equal party, rather than consideration of his claim to the other participant in anotherindependent case. In this case, a counterclaim is a kind of protection against the judicial immunityof an international organization. In the author’s opinion, the international organization should alsobe considered as renounced judicial immunity in respect of the original claim, if the organizationfiled a counterclaim in the Russian court. In these cases, the renouncement of the right to judicialimmunity is characterized by the conclusive procedural actions of the international organization andis expressed in the choice of a certain line of conduct, excluding other legal protection mechanismsin order to avoid the abuse of the right. |
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128–143
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In the domestic science, the notion of public property is gaining increasing popularity. It is proposedto develop in the normative acts the idea of a variety of forms of ownership and to recognize the public form of ownership as a special kind of relationship that needs special legal regulation.However, many specialists stand on opposite positions. They affirm in their studies the ideal of aunified property right with a single content for all owners. Such views are widespread among civillaw experts. They are making efforts to improve civil legislation in a way that excludes not only thecategory of public property, but also the division of ownership into some form. This confrontation isnot a normal phenomenon. It shows that there is no reliable theoretical basis for codifying not onlyproperty law, but also all Russian legislation. The choice should not be purely sectoral, it is necessaryto find a common solution for Russian law. Since the separation of property into forms is enshrinedin legislation, for many decades it has received a scientific justification, and today many are taken forgranted, and the article focuses on alternative views. The article attempts to assess the successionof supporters of the unified property right in defending their ideas, the timeliness and practical valueof their proposals. The author uses historical, comparative-legal methods of research: the divisionof property into forms in due time has affected many institutions of domestic law, and therefore therejection of this division should be combined with the rejection of other concepts, constructions,and solutions that have become customary. The methodological basis of the study was a systemanalysis: the idea of a unified property right was critically evaluated from the point of view of itscorrespondence to another important concept, legal personality. It is concluded that the weak pointof the position of the supporters of the unified property right is the discrepancy between their viewson property and legal personality, their lenient attitude towards the three-member classification ofsubjects in civil law. A unified property right will help to raise the codification of property legislation toa qualitatively new level. But first of all the idea of a single legal personality must be established in ourlaw. The first step in this direction will be the return of the Russian Federation, constituent entities ofthe Russian Federation and municipal entities to the system of legal entities. |
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144–157
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State and municipal bodies use actively the Internet to implement tasks. The paper studies variousaspects of the presence of public power on the Internet, execution of state functions in digitalenvironment, in particular securing openness of public power, providing electronic state andmunicipal services, their outsourcing and accompanying issues of information security includingscraper sites and identification when rendering state and municipal services electronically. Besides,the requirement of the openness of public power covers other state bodies and the structuresperforming public functions and the officials. Non-state structures may also satisfy publicly relevantinterests primarily when outsourcing some functions of state and municipal bodies. Hence, thesestructures should maintain a level of information openness equal to state and municipal bodiesincluding the provision of information. Some public functions are transmitted by the state in particularto self-regulated organizations. Hence, the question arises on securing their information openness.The information openness principle applied to self-governing organizations should be a principle forany self-regulated organizations, which is why the changes have touched upon other federal lawsproviding for the activity of such organizations. The requirement of open activity are not limited toself-regulated organizations. A number of the Russian Federation constituent entities have adoptedsimilar laws and rules targeting legal security of free access to information on the providers of socialservices, the services, terms, order, conditions, tariffs on the services in mass media and Internetofficial websites. |
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158–164
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As was shown by the last election campaign, held on the single voting day on 13 September 2015,the issue of invalid signatures in signature sheets submitted for registration of lists of candidates“non-parliamentary” political parties to participate in elections, was one of the main. The latest trendis that parties try to shift the solution of this problem on the courts. However, the task of the judiciaryis different: the restoration of violated rights, but not the verification of the signature sheets. In thisregard, subject of study are the decisions of the superior courts of the Russian Federation on votingrights. The author purposes are to determine the root cause, which makes it impossible to challengein court the decision of the election commission on refusal to register the list of candidates. Toachieve this goal are used general research methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis, inferences),as well as the method of system analysis of legal phenomena. In result of the research the authorcomes to the conclusion that there are several reasons, including the imperfection of the legalprocedure of verification of signature sheets. It is also worth noting that political parties do not use infull their rights in pre-trial settlement of disputes in the electoral commissions, which also becomesan important factor in the protection of their rights. With the aim of improving the legal mechanismof verification of signature sheets, the author proposes to supply political parties the right to petitionto challenge the electoral commission those voters whose signatures were found to be inaccurate,submit a properly authenticated statement of voters signed in support of list of candidates, as wellas a request for clarification of information contained in a certificate of the authority conducting theregistration of citizens of the Russian Federation. Appeal for judicial protection in connection withthe refusal of election commissions to register the list of candidates must be an extreme form ofprotection of electoral rights of the citizens. |
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165–176
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It is studying the relevance of the systematization of Russian sports legislation and issues of thepublication of a codified sports act. The essence of codification as a kind of systematization ofnormative legal acts is revealed, the current state of Russian sports legislation is studied, foreignexperience of systematization and codification of sports legislation is considered. Particular attentionis paid to the analysis of the practice of codification of sports legislation in France. It is concludedthat the presence of a sufficiently specific system of sports legislation of the Russian Federationobjectively raises the question of the need to develop and adopt the Sporting Code of the RussianFederation. It is substantiated that the French experience of the codification of sports law studied inthe publication is a graphic illustration of how in the course of systematization of sports legislation thetasks of raising the status of physical culture and sports, the understanding of law enforcement, arebeing laid, a vector is being laid for the successful development of the branch of legislation and therelevant branch of law. The arguments in favor of the Sporting Code are the priority of physical cultureand sports government support and regulation; relevant foreign experience; the large number oflaws and regulations of the Russian Federation in the field of sports rights, the incompleteness ofthe legislative process in this area; forecasting the adoption of further rules and regulations bringingchaos in law understanding and enforcement. It is proved that there are no current objectiveobstacles to the development and approval of the Sporting Code of the Russian Federation. Thebasis for codification may be the Federal Law “On Physical Culture and Sports”, and gaps in legalregulation can be eliminated by introducing in the text of the code provisions of model laws on sportstraining, professional and paralympic sports. The author expresses conviction that the adoption ofthe Sports Code of the Russian Federation, in many respects, anticipates and warns the problemsin the legal understanding and enforcement expected in the coming years in connection with theactive state interference in the regulation of legal relations in the field of physical culture and sports,conditioned by the priority nature of the latter’s development. |
Law in the modern world
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177–187
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In the last three years, the term “hybrid warfare” is being actively applied in political context. However,legal aspects of this phenomenon remain insufficiently studied. As a result, there is a dangeroussituation when the term reflecting real tendencies in the sphere of military and informational policy ofthe states gradually takes root into research terminology, without any appropriate legal content yet.Nowadays there is a serious discussion about the possibility of using this term in a legal context andabout the opportunities of its further inclusion into international legal terminology. The phenomenonof “hybrid warfare” shows sharp increase of the importance of informational component ininternational relations. It also represents the logical continuation of practical implementation of theconcept of “color revolutions” and “Arab springs” which mainly deal with non-military impact onthe opponent. The author believes that the prospects of inclusion of the term “hybrid warfare” interminology of international law are very nebulous, taking into account that there have been legalterm “state terrorism” for more than three decades, with a very similar sense, which has not yetbecome a subject of international legal regulation in the specialized convention. Moreover, the factthat “hybrid warfare” became a journalistic cliche for designation of actions of the states are not fittinginto a framework of a traditional military paradigm, has extremely bad effect on the prospects of legal regulation of this phenomenon. Besides, the information and communication sphere represents toodifficult subject of legal regulation due to its dynamism. The author points out the most significantinternational legal issues arising from legal connotation of the term “hybrid warfare”, including theproblem of conducting direct analogies between the classical military categories and the categoriesof “hybrid war”. In this context, the problem is whether cyber-attacks can be considered as a basisfor the state self-defense, as well as whether actions of states during “hybrid war” can be consideredas the basis for the international responsibility of states. |
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188–201
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Mankind has faced in the past and will inevitably face in the future with the powerful forces of naturaland man-made, which are often dramatic and lasting impact on the society, economy, commercialand other contracts. Frustration — one of the original institutions of English law, which allows thecourt to release the parties from further performance of the contract upon the occurrence of certaincircumstances, when the performance becomes impossible or extremely economically unprofitable.The emergence of this institution in the second half of the 19th century preceded by a long periodduring which legal practice consistently followed the principle of pacta sunt servanda. The articleconsiders the basic judicial precedents illustrating the development of the doctrine of contractfrustration in English law, sets out the views of English jurists in this field, an comparative analysis ofthis doctrine and relevant norms of Russian law was attempted. The methodological framework ofthis research based on a set of methods of research cognition, among which the main ones arehistorical and comparative law methods. For a century and a half of its development the English lawdoctrine of frustration of contract has evolved significantly. During this period understanding of thenature and types of circumstances that can cause frustration of the contract, of the essence of thefrustration, of the necessary restrictions on the use of this doctrine, as well as the legal consequencesof frustration, has been improved. The author comes to a conclusion about the need to study thedoctrine of frustration of contract not only in academic purposes, but also for the improvement of therelevant Russian legal norms, their application, as well as to ensure the operation of national lawyersin the sphere of application of the English law and law of countries that have experienced the impactof this doctrine. |
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202–215
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The article is devoted to the legislation in the field of consumer rights protection in Russia and China.The authors highlighted the issues in the sphere of consumer protection in trading service of theRussian Federation (hereafter — the RF) and the People’s Republic of China (hereafter — the PRC).The article presents a comparative analysis of the legislation of the two countries, identifies prospectsand development trends of the Russian and Chinese legislation in the sphere of consumer protection.A comparison of the provisions of the RF and PRC legislation in the sphere of consumer protectionin trading service is of particular relevance. The main goal of this comparison is to remove the gapsin national legislation, improve its provisions according to the PRC legal practice. The authors ofthe proposed article make conclusions that despite some differences in formulation, the scope ofthe Russian and Chinese laws are practically identical. The study of the Chinese law rules leads tothe conclusion that the legislation may need the relations that are associated with the purchaseand use of goods, performance of works or rendering of services. Consumer protection legislationvaries periodically. Currently it is modernizing. In order to improve the mechanism of consumers’rights protection in Russia, the authors propose to fix the mediation usage at the legislative level,as it is in the PRC. The introduction of this procedure will also contribute to the development of themovement in defense of consumers’ rights, strengthening the role of civil society organizations. Wedeem it expedient to add mediation provision in the sphere of consumer protection into the Law ofthe Russian Federation on the Protection of the Consumers’ Rights. Also it is essential to strengthenthe role of consumer associations in this procedure. |
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216–231
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The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany referred to as the Fundamental Law containsthe catalogue of basic human rights. The rights specified in this catalogue of law is considered as immediate directly applicable law and is binding for all government institutions, in particular its legislativebranch. Fundamental rights directly concern tax legislation with a special influence on legal andeconomic life of society. The specifics of this branch of law is reflected in the opinions of the FederalConstitutional Court of Germany showing the necessity of strict correspondence of tax legislationfixed in the Constitution by fundamental law. A special focus is given to the fixed in the constitutionright to equality (the principle of charging taxes in proportion to the economic solvency, the principleof objective and subjective net taxation) and other fundamental rights (protection of the right ofproperty, protection of family and marriage). Besides, the laws including the norms of tax law shouldmeet the requirements resulting from the principle of rule of law state specified in the FundamentalLaw. These requirements include in particular the obligatory procedure of parliamentary approval oftax laws and a proper level of legal certainty of a law to be approved and the ban on the retroactiveeffect on tax laws. The paper outlines the German tax law and its sources as well as the system of taxbodies in Germany, classifies taxes by the object of taxation. Then on the basis of analyzing practiceof the German Federal Constitutional Court, Superior Financial Court and courts of general jurisdiction,the paper reveals the relevance of the major laws and the principle of rule of law state for Germantax law concerning natural person taxation. |
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