No 7 (2024)

One of the conditions for solving modern problems is the study of historical experience. This also applies to criminal proceedings, one of the stages of which was bringing the accused to trial. In the criminal process of the Russian Empire, this stage appeared as a result of the judicial reform of 1864, which established principles, many of which were later accepted by the Soviet and modern Russian legislation.

The purpose of the article is to determine the role of the Prosecutor’s Office in bringing the accused to trial by the judicial chambers of the Russian Empire after the judicial reform of 1864. For this, the tasks were set not only to analyze the legal status of the prosecutor at the stage of bringing the accused to trial, but also to determine the effectiveness of its implementation in practice.

Methods. The methodological basis of the study was dialectical, systemic and praxeological approaches, as well as formal-logical, historical, statistical and special-legal (formal-legal, historical-legal, comparative-legal) methods.

Results. The reasons are shown why in cases of crimes for which deprivation or restriction of the rights of the state was envisaged, the legislator decided to grant the right to bring the accused to trial not to the prosecutor, but to the judicial chamber. The conditions and procedure for bringing to trial are analyzed, as well as the decisions taken by the judicial chamber based on the results of consideration of the conclusions of the Prosecutor’s Office. Based on the analysis of statistical data, the effectiveness of the conclusions of the Prosecutor’s Office in criminal cases and the tendency to improve their quality are shown. The reasons for the proposals to reform the procedure for bringing to trial and to strengthen the role of the Prosecutor’s Office in this matter are considered. The process of legislative simplification of the procedure for bringing to trial in certain categories of cases and the process of expanding the influence of the Prosecutor’s Office are shown.

Taking into account a systematic analysis of the provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, acts of public law (both national and international), understanding of the essence of chemical, biological, toxin weapons and the risks associated with their development, testing, creation, circulation and use, this article forms ideas about the historical genesis, current state and prospects for the prohibition of these weapons, and the possible complete chemical and biological disarmament of the planet.

The article identifies (in the aspect of the declared research topic) the problems of implementation of international law provisions into national legal systems.

The authors have established the purpose of implementing the prohibition of chemical and bacteriological weapons as ensuring the security of the individual and the State.

The article focuses on the possibility of using artificial intelligence technology in judicial activity and assesses the admissibility of granting artificial intelligence the powers of a judge from ethical and legal points of view.

Forecasting the possible prospects of development and the limits of the usage of artificial intelligence in justice, the author determines the risks that human might face in his willingness to empower artificial mind with humans’ rights and obligations.

The article analyzes the term “artificial intelligence” identified by several sources, considers its similarities and differences with human intelligence, and concludes that it is not and cannot be its analogue.

Marking the effectiveness of utilizing artificial intelligence in scientific, industrial, economic, and social activities, the author emphasizes the necessity of legal regulation of the directions of its development and spheres of application.

Polemicizing with a number of scientists who concede the potential possibility of granting artificial intelligence the powers of a judge, the author designates the intellectual qualities essential for a human to execute justice and generalizes that such qualities, which jointly identify the ethical principles of human relationships, cannot be possessed by artificial intelligence.

The article notes that the democratic basis of our country, stipulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, is a legal barrier to empowering artificial intelligence with the authority of government body.

At the same time, the author positively assesses the extending field of application of information technology in judicial procedure and in organizational support of court activity and concludes the possibility of performing by artificial intelligence some procedural functions, exercising some other application tasks in judicial activity except for the executive and administrative powers.

Challenging related-party transactions allows the corporation to maintain a stable financial position and prevent the redistribution of corporate assets in favor of unconscientious persons. At the same time only participants who collectively own at least 1 % of the voting shares (votes of the participants) of the company can act on behalf and in the interests of the corporation at present. This approach significantly limits the corporation’s right to protection, since when calculating it obliges to take into account shares and votes, including those directly owned by persons interested in the transaction.

The purpose of the paper is to develop scientific and theoretical provisions on the challenging the related-party transactions by the corporation represented by a participant.

While writing the article, general scientific methods of cognition were applied (systemic, formal logical methods: induction and deduction, synthesis and analysis), as well as special legal methods (formal legal, legal modeling method, comparative legal method).

The article concludes that the current procedure for challenging related-party transactions, in terms of determining the person authorized to act on behalf and in the interests of the corporation, is similar to the procedure for challenging large transactions, which does not seem entirely correct. It is grounded that a corporation represented by its participant should have an opportunity to challenge a transaction in which there is an interest, if the corporation participant owns at least 1 % of the voting shares and votes of the participants minus the voting shares and votes of the participants belonging to the person interested in the transaction.

The analysis of criminological literature shows that, on the one hand, the literal translation of the term “criminology” means “the science of crime”, but, on the other hand, the subject of criminology both as a science and as an academic discipline includes a number of elements that make it possible to form a relatively objective picture of crime as a negative, historically changeable, mass socio-legal phenomenon, about its structure, dynamics, trends, as well as about the personality of those who are those who have committed the crime are conventionally referred to for the sake of brevity for scientific and educational purposes as the personality of the criminal. It is the personality of the criminal that is the key link in the mechanism of committing a crime. At the same time, individual criminal behavior is negatively affected not only by unfavorable environmental conditions in a broad sense, but also by the peculiarities of the psychophysiological properties of the individual, including the mental state.

In the course of this study, the emphasis was placed on the content analysis of the scientific literature on the problems of criminological study of the personality of the criminal. In addition, the method of comparative legal analysis of individual norms of the current Russian criminal legislation was used. The method of examining documents, in particular those of a medical nature, in the field of mental disorders and behavioural disorders, was also used.

The results of the study indicate that in the opinion of prominent Russian scientists, known not only in the former USSR and modern Russia, but also in many distant foreign countries, from among the specialists in the field of such legal sciences of the anti-criminal cycle as criminal law, criminology and penal law, individual criminal behavior is influenced not only by social factors of external reality. Often, the psychophysiological characteristics of the offender’s personality act as the causes of crimes or the conditions conducive to their commission.

A person»s behavior is determined not exclusively by surrounding circumstances or, on the contrary, only by internal properties, but is the result of the interaction of the external environment and the peculiarities of the psychophysiological properties of the personality. From the point of view of criminology, it is important to involve specialists in the field of clinical psychology, neurology, and psychiatry in the study of the personality of a criminal within the framework of scientific research for a professionally competent, in-depth analysis of the features of the psychophysiological properties of the person in order to find out the reasons for the choice of a criminal variant of behavior.

The subject of this article is the problems of the nature, essence and purpose of the institute of jury trial. The institute of jury trial is based on the implementation of the main purpose – the implementation of justice. The institution of jury trial establishes such a format in ensuring fair justice, which causes public confidence in the modern judicial system. The improvement of the institution of jury trial within the framework of the ongoing legal reform, of course, involves the resolution of problems that contribute to the improvement of justice in order to increase its effectiveness.

The purpose of the article is to study and substantiate the significance and role of the institution of jury trial in the modern concept of the rule of law. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are defined: identification of the main components of the legal regulation of the jury trial in Russia; analysis of the impact of judicial practice on the development of the institution of the jury trial.

When writing the article, methods of analysis and generalization of judicial practice with the participation of jurors were used.

As a result of the research, the author came to the conclusion about the necessity and possibility of improving legislation in order to optimize the activities of jurors. It is proposed to amend the legislation on strengthening the legal status of jurors, changing the order of their appointment, eliminating legal conflicts in legislative acts regulating the institution of jury trial. The amendments and additions proposed in this article to the legislation on the implementation of justice with the participation of jurors should be considered another reason for discussion about improving the effectiveness of both the institution of jury trial and the prospects for further development of the form of criminal proceedings in the Russian Federation.