Abstract: The subject of the research is a comparative analysis of the approaches of the European Court of Human Rights, the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission to the notion “religious feelings” and the level of a necessary government protection. Special attention is paid to the notion of “religious feelings” and the possibility of legal definition of this notion; the author assesses the compliance of the article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation about an insult to the religious feelings of the believers with the European standards from the aspect of legal certainty. The author uses the comparative-legal and the formal-logical methods, the methods of analysis and synthesis. The author concludes about the impossibility of normative legalization of the notion “religious feelings”. The author substantiates the need for a clear distinction between fomentation of hatred and enmity on religious grounds and the insult of feelings of believers including blasphemy and sacrilege and the reasonability of decriminalization of the “insult of religious feelings of believers”. 

Keywords: religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, blasphemy, insult of believers' feelings, the European Court of Human Rights, the Venice Commission, criminal responsibility, legal certainty, decriminalization

Abstract: The article considers the main stages of formation of the Russian Federation as a temporal state. The article presents a historical and legal review of development of secularity in Russia in the historical periods starting from 1701 till the present time. The author notes that the Constitutions of the USSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic didn’t legitimate a temporal state as a characteristic of social order. For the first time this term occurred in the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation (though the USSR Law № 1689-1 “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations” of October 1, 1990 and the Law № 267-1 “On Freedom of Religion” used the term “secularity” when describing the state system of education). The author applies the following methods: the specifically-historical method, the comparative-legal, the formal-juridical and the political-legal methods. Normative acts of the Soviet period didn’t use the term “secularity” but formally legalized the temporal character of the state. At the same time, in reality the state was atheistic and in particular periods of history took tough repressive measures against religious organisations (1917 – 1920 – the first shootings of the clergy and the mass robberies of churches, 1921-1923 – confiscation of church values, 1929 – 1931 – dispossession of the kulaks, 1937 – 1938 – mass terror, 1958 – 1964 – the Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign). 

Keywords: Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Federation, law, secularism, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, temporal state, atheism, USSR, religion

Abstract: One of the tasks of the science of administrative law at present is the study of the problems of administrative legislation implementation. Various amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation have made some of its provisions complicated and contradictory. The author supposes that the analysis of the problems of implementation of the existing administrative legislation in the sphere of road safety is a precondition for the formation of an effective mechanism of administrative-legal regulation of this sphere and one of the conditions of optimisation of road safety and the decrease of accident rate. The methodology of the research is based on the recent achievements of epistemology. The author uses the general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction) and the special scientific methods (formal-logical and comparative legal). The novelty of the research lies in the suggested measures of the existing administrative-delictual legislation enhancement aimed at its further optimisation in the aspects of law-making and law-enforcement and realization of the government policy in the sphere of road safety provision.

Keywords: rates, punishment, crime, accident rate, tort, traffic, security, Administrative legislation, responsibility, legal awareness

Abstract: The author considers the issues of criminalization of bribery in criminal legislation of the EU member states focusing on the implementation of international legal norms about the responsibility for subornation of foreign and international officials in national criminal legislation. Special attention in article is paid to the interpretation of the concept "official" and other signs of structure of bribery in criminal laws of the EU member states. The author differentiates mediation in bribery and traffic of influence. The study of criminal-legal provisions about the responsibility for bribery in the member states of the European Union is carried out on the basis of the comparative-legal method which allowed to study the general and specific regularities of criminalization of bribery in certain countries of the EU. The research allows formulating the following conclusions: bribery as a form of manifestation of corruption is criminalized in all member states of the European Union; legal norms establishing criminal liability for bribery are various; bribery as a generalized concept includes two independent but inseparably interrelated acts – giving and accepting bribes (respectively active and passive bribery); in most European countries the legislator estimates accepting of bribe as more dangerous act than giving and, respectively, establishes tougher measures of criminal liability for passive bribery. 

Keywords: criminal liability, traffic of influence, mediation in bribery, bribery, corruption crimes, corruption, the European Union, criminalization, implementation, criminal legislation

Abstract: The subject of the research is a sphere of financial and legal stimuli of rightful behaviour of a taxpayer and other subjects of finance law. The object of the research is a range of financial legal relationship in the abovementioned sphere. The author analyzes tax legislation and the related branches of law containing the stimuli of rightful behaviour in the sphere of finance. The author focuses on the post-delictual rightful behaviour and notes that the existing stimuli of this type are not sufficient for the development of rightful behaviour in the sphere of finance. The author analyzes and compares the similar provisions of the foreign legislation. The author uses the dialectical method which allows considering the object and the subject of the research in complex, in their development and dynamics. The research is based on the formal-logical method and the method of comparative jurisprudence. The author claims that the incentive financial sanction is a necessary structural element of an incentive system of finance law which legalizes the amount and the measure of positive responsibility which is a contraction of restrictions imposed on a subject, or exemption of liability. The tendencies of development of legislation should include the amount of financial legal stimuli of rightful behaviour. 

Keywords: prevention of offences, rightful behavior, privileges, restrictions, stimuli, tax law, finance law, tax amnesty, finance regulation, financial rightful behavior

Abstract: The subject of the research is the legislative system of the 1730th – the 1740th. The authors attempt to objectively assess certain institutions of the system of law of the Russian Empire in the reign of Anna Ioannovna. Special attention is paid to the specificity of the form and the content of legal acts. The authors prove that the legal practice of that period was unstable and imperfect. The authors note a significant influence of German law-making culture on the form and the content of legal documents. At the same time it is shown that a great deal of legal acts had a bulky and unstructured linguistic form without a division into clauses, paragraphs, etc. On the base of the logical and system-structural methods the authors consider the types of the sources of law of this historical period, analyze and structure them. The authors come to the following conclusions: during the reign of Anna Ioannovna there had been made an unsuccessful attempt to separate the court from the administrative bodies; the Senate had again been made the highest appellate judicial institution; the 1714 primogeniture act had been abrogated; the issues of the responsibilities of the authorities had been actively managed; special attention had been paid to the activities of fiscal bodies and to the regulation of the military department; the system of criminal penalties remained unchanged except for the toughening of sanctions for state crimes. 

Keywords: law, law-making, system of punishment, decree of the Senate, decree, statutes, manifest, legal act, state, legislation