The amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 2020 have generated a wide response both within Russia and abroad. The article reflects the legal content of the main amendments and attempts to show the political prerequisites for the decisions taken. Firstly, it notes the readiness of the political leadership to heed the opinion of constitutional scholars on the need to make adjustments in the system of relations between the branches of power, to enhance the role of parliament in the formation of government and control over its activity. Secondly, it is necessary to take steps towards eliminating political uncertainty caused by the forthcoming change of the state leader in 2024 due to the expiry of his constitutional term in office. Thirdly, the constitutional provisions aimed at protecting the sovereignty of the state and the rights of citizens. Fourth, the clarification of the powers of the state supreme bodies, which have been developed in federal laws. In the meantime, the task of introducing new constitutional constructions (public authority, senator, senator-for-life) was solved.
It is concluded that the result obtained in the nationwide vote was the result of a well-constructed step-by-step preparation of the amendment bill, its substantive content, the feelings and expectations of the country’s citizens, and the general domestic and foreign political environment. The 2020 amendments solved a number of legal problems. However, at the same time, the process of their discussion made it possible to demonstrate the presence in society of a consolidated core capable of upholding its national interests. This is a kind of assessment by the participants in the nationwide vote of the policy pursued by the current head of state and the country’s leadership as a whole. Despite the fair (in many people’s minds) criticism of the decisions taken by the authorities at all levels, the preservation of the fundamental values (stability, certainty, security) proved to be a priority for the majority of voters.

This article is devoted to the study of religious issues in the constitutional regulation of modern Russia. The author proves that while there is unquestionable respect for religious systems and unconditional recognition of the important role of religion in human history, including Russian history, every religious system has a mystical element at its core, while mysticism itself is alien to positive jurisprudence. Princes and tsars used religion in Russian state history to ensure obedience of subjects, but these times are in the distant past. Modern Russia, which raised several generations in an atheistic environment, has generally lost its organic connection with religion, and a large-scale revival of this trend could hardly be considered appropriate from a state-legal perspective. Religion in modern Russian society is also unable to fulfil a state and ideological mission. The constitutional amendments of 2020 ended up being more far-reaching than what the President of the Russian Federation had officially proposed when introducing the bill in the State Duma. The President’s restraint of initiatives, often not entirely reasonable, could be seen by participants in the rulemaking process as a kind of intransigence of the initiator of the amendments. In this regard, there has been an overly uncritical approach to constitutional law-making, the legal consequences of which are only beginning to emerge today and will continue to arise as legislative and law enforcement practice develops.

The relevance of the problem and the ongoing scientific debate are due to the fact that the study of the issue of the legal nature of the criminal institute involves analysis of various aspects of its legislative regulation and law enforcement. The philosophical law stating that the essence is reflected in the manifestations (content) fully applies to the law as well; it is it (the legal essence) that determines the features of this or that block of legal provisions and their place in the system of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and its identification is a condition of optimal legal regulation. Criminal law is, above all, a social tool; it is a specific way of implementing social norms and protection of social relations. The author proposes an original approach that allows revealing the nature of the said institute, considering the peculiarities of its regulation through the prism of social and legal prerequisites, as well as their respective grounds for enshrining provisions on exemption from criminal responsibility on non-rehabilitation grounds in the criminal legislation. In the discussion, the tone of which is set by scientists of Kazan University, different versions are proposed and scientific positions are substantiated; in general, as follows from the work, the question are non-repressive and non-punitive, specific measures of criminal impact.

The subject of this report is the legal nature of the pre-emptive right, which, in the author’s opinion, should be seen as an independent subjective right that is, in some cases, an element of a civil legal relationship.
One of the theses is the idea that the pre-emptive right does not have a binding legal nature, since there is no counter obligation that corresponds to this right. There are no signs of obligation, including obligation arising on the basis of the law, since there is no active and passive subject. At the end of the study, the author concludes that the pre-emptive right is a set of legal norms regulating the regime of its exercise. In this regard, we can speak of a legal institution of pre-emptive rights. In a subjective sense, the pre-emptive right is an independent subjective right, established by law, of a participant in a certain legal relation (right in rem, right in personam, corporate law, etc.), which is an element of it, aimed at protecting other subjective rights of participants in such legal relations.

The article investigates separate issues of civil rights protection in case of violation of balance of rights and interests of participants of civil legal relations due to unfair competition and abuse of exclusive right to a trademark. The paper focuses on the study of the essence of abuse of rights and unfair competition and how the two categories relate to each other. The author has analyzed the possibility to define some special corpus delicti constituting the abuse of the exclusive right to a trademark and unfair competition and made a conclusion about the inexpediency of the legislative definition of such corpus delicti. The analysis of judicial practice has revealed a number of criteria that should be taken into account when qualifying actions to acquire and exercise an exclusive right to a trademark as an abuse of right or unfair competition and an obligatory component of any composition is the bad faith of participants of civil legal relations.