The introduction of statistical “legal tech” raises questions about the future of law and legal practice. While technologies have always mediated the concept, practice, and texture of law, a qualitative and quantitative shift is taking place: statistical legal tech is being integrated into mainstream legal practice, and particularly that of litigators. These applications — particularly in search and document generation — mediate how practicing lawyers interact with the legal system. By shaping how law is “done”, the applications ultimately come to shape what law is. Where such applications impact on the creative elements of the litigator’s practice, for example via automation bias, they affect their professional and ethical duty to respond appropriately to the unique circumstances of their client’s case — a duty that is central to the Rule of Law. The statistical mediation of legal resources by machine learning applications must therefore be introduced with great care, if we are to avoid the subtle, inadvertent, but ultimately fundamental undermining of the Rule of Law. In this contribution we describe the normative effects of legal tech application design, how they are (in)compatible with law and the Rule of Law as normative orders, particularly with respect to legal texts which we frame as the proper source of “lossless law”, uncompressed by statistical framing. We conclude that reliance on the vigilance of individual lawyers is insufficient to guard against the potentially harmful effects of such systems, given their inscrutability, and suggest that the onus is on the providers of legal technologies to demonstrate the legitimacy of their systems according to the standards inherent in the legal system.

The translation and publication of this article is based on the CC BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, under which this article was published in English at https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ts259/. The article is accepted for publication in Communitas (2022).

The study of the regulation of personal non-property relations is based on a new approach (theory) of dualism of regulation of private relations, dividing regulation into legal (self-regulation) and normative. The nature of private relations, which are the subject of legal and regulatory regulation, is determined not so much in legislative provisions, only indirectly reflecting their nature, but by the direct nature of human activity, as an independent activity of the individual, carried out at his own risk in order to meet his needs through the choice of a suitable variant of behavior. The system of private relations determines the system of law, i. e. a certain set of its branches, distinguished by the peculiarities of the manifestation of the subject of regulation, including personal non-property law. The system of private relations is indirectly reflected in legislation as an external form of expression of the system of law. The system of law consists not only of homogeneous rights (branches of law), but also of other subdivisions of law that are not subject divisions of law: business law, corporate law, intellectual property law, family law, housing law, labor law, land law, etc. Such types of private rights, being sub-branches or institutions of law, belong simultaneously to several branches of law (personal non-property, property, law of obligation or inheritance), but are distinguished by any special feature (signs) of regulated attitude: by subject, for example, business law; on the object, for example, housing law, etc.; on a special combination of elements regulated by relations, for example, intellectual property law, private international law; some other sign. The presented methodology for the study of private relations, their legal forms and public organization makes it possible to clarify many particular problems, including the question of the nature and legislative reflection of personal non-property rights.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of current trends in the formation of ethical and legal dilemmas in society under the influence of a global pandemic. Based on the consideration of the key arguments characterizing the dominant forms of legal discourse in the modern philosophy of law, the authors justify a number of contradictions that lead to realistic ideas about law and the possibility of direct use in the practice of law enforcement of these empirical sciences. The key social problems and challenges that have developed under the influence of the pandemic are considered, as well as the possibilities of overcoming contradictions between the values of citizens, the need to ensure legal principles and restore an effective dialogue between the authorities and society when applying emergency measures.

The article is devoted to the prospects of introducing the institution of jury trial in Russian civil, administrative and arbitration proceedings. This issue seems to be quite relevant nowadays, in connection with the opinions expressed in the scientific community. Nevertheless, one of the main obstacles to the extension of the competence of the jury trial in Russian legal proceedings is the lack of historical experience of the usage of this institution in the consideration of cases outside the criminal jurisdiction in Russian courts. The author of the article aims to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the functioning of the institute of jury trial in non-criminal cases in comparison with ordinary judicial procedure. The article examines the existing models of functioning of the jury in this category of cases in foreign jurisdictions, both in countries of common and mixed law. The analysis of the existing mechanisms inherent in foreign countries include consideration of issues of jurisdiction, functioning of the jury trial, as well as their final verdict. As a result of the conducted research, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that this institution is most rooted in countries with a strong historical and cultural tradition. In addition, most frequently, the jury considers cases that affect issues of public interest, increasing confidence in the courts’ decisions.

The article is devoted to the problems that arise in the activities of lawyers in providing legal assistance to victims of domestic violence who were charged with causing harm to the life and health of their offenders. Self-defense (necessary defense) is considered as the main defense strategy in such criminal cases. The author compares legislative approaches and features of law enforcement practice that arise when using this strategy on domestic and foreign experience (using the example of the United States), dwelling separately on cases where self-defense took place outside an open conflict (in non-confrontational circumstances). Based on the analysis of approaches to this problem in foreign jurisdictions, the author proposes in Russian practice to use evidence confirming the history of domestic violence and the psychological trauma they cause in the victim in such categories of cases in order to confirm the compliance of the behavior of the victim of violence with the criteria for necessary defense.

The relevance of the study is due to the unresolved issue of the nature of the partnership between entrepreneurs and authorities, which in practice generates litigations. The article analyzes the use of the term “partnership of entrepreneurs and authorities” in legislation based on methodological prerequisites. The author presents theoretical developments in the field of research of the concept of “partnership” in philosophical, economic and legal science. The author attempts to identify the term “partnership of entrepreneurs and authorities”. The local legislation prior to enforcement of law on PPP is considered as taking into account the variety of forms of such partnerships. The author underline the practical significance of the term “partnership of entrepreneurs and authorities”. The author gives the definition of the term “partnership of entrepreneurs and authorities”.

The article analyses the category of a fictitious administrative act. It is pointed out that the term “fictitious administrative act” borrowed from German administrative law is not appropriate for Russian law. As a substitute for it, another term is offered — “implied administrative act”. It is argued that the implied administrative act, being a legal fiction, is not an administrative act in the proper sense of the word. Consequently, although the rules on the invalidity of administrative acts may be applied to implied administrative acts, not all grounds of invalidity may be applicable to them. As a result of the analysis of foreign legislation, possible models of using of implied administrative act are presented. The paper demonstrates that the legislator can establish a positive or negative fictitious conclusion either as a general rule or in relation to individual administrative procedures. The objectives of introducing the category in question into the legislation are also determined. The article shows that the goals of normative fixation and the use of positive and negative fictitious conclusion in legal practice are different. The purpose of a negative fictitious conclusion is to eliminate the state of legal uncertainty in cases where challenging the inaction of an administrative body for one reason or another is difficult. At the same time, a positive fictitious conclusion generally leads to simplification and acceleration of administrative procedures and contributes to procedural savings. Taking into account foreign experience, the paper concludes that it is advisable to introduce a positive implied administrative act into Russian legislation to simplify and speed up administrative procedures. General recommendations on possible ways of its introduction are given, in particular, it is indicated that it is unacceptable to establish such a condition as a general rule.

Sports associations today occupy a rather isolated position relative to other organizations. This could not but affect the subjects of sports, which today are under a serious influence from the requirements of these associations, while simultaneously fulfilling the requirements of their national laws. In this article, the author explores the category of “sport autonomy”, as well as its impact on the labor legislation of the Russian Federation. The paper notes that the autonomy of sports should be understood as a phenomenon and as a principle. The legislator, on the other hand, avoids the concept of the autonomy of sports. The Federal Law “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation” enshrines the principle of self-regulation in sports, which introduces additional confusion into the study of the problem. The article provides examples of the impact of sports autonomy on individual forms of interaction between an athlete, coach and employer. In particular, the employment contract, the temporary transfer of an athlete to another employer, the procedure for considering individual labor disputes were studied. It is obvious that the implementation of the norms of corporate acts of sports organizations has a beneficial effect on the regulation of the work of athletes. But work in this direction must continue.

The article is a review of the speeches of the participants of the section of the Faculty of Law of the Northwestern Institute of Management of the RANEPA, held within the framework of the VI International Nevsky Forum (St. Petersburg, June 25, 2022) “Legal reforms: past, present and future”, which discussed the problems of reforms in the field of law, as general problems of reforms in in the form of the need to define a clear goal and guidelines for reform, and in terms of reforms in certain legal areas (education, digitalization, legal history, constitutional law, civil law). In general, the participants agreed on the need to take into account the social, economic and political context when carrying out reforms and evaluating their results, clearly setting the goal of reforms, and the need to maintain, within the framework of current changes, adherence to unshakable ideas and principles of law, and constitutional law in particular.