2018 Issue №3

Drawing on a comparative analysis of current research and academic literature published in Russia and the United States, I describe the stages of the development of forensic science in the two countries. I analyse the structure and major areas of modern criminalistics. Special attention is paid to the relevant philosophical and methodological framework and the functions of forensic science. I give a detailed account of Russian and US scholars’ approaches to the nature, subject, and object of criminalistics and provide an overview of the history of the discipline. I address the relationship between criminalistics and criminal procedure law. In considering the methodological framework for criminalistics, I focus on the thought experiment (event reconstruction) technique and the situational approach, which is used both in Russia and in the US. I describe the concept, essence, and capabilities of the situation approach to crime investigation. Today, the situational approach is central to forensic thinking. I demonstrate the role of the approach in the training of lawyers and in investigative practices. I describe the use of forensic thinking in the US in the advanced training of detectives and investigators as a means to further their professional growth. I demonstrate how civil and arbitration procedures may benefit from modern criminalistics.

In this article, I provide an overview of the history of investigation programming and analyse the shortcomings of the algorithm method. Apparently, these shortcomings can be overcome by forensic thinking. I provide my own interpretation of forensic thinking structure and avenues to study this phenomenon. The methods to explore forensic thinking include forensic, philosophical, neurophysiological, and psychological approaches and the study of thinking through the prism of its relationship with artificial intelligence.

In this article, I address the problem of the disproportionate expansion of the object of legal regulation. I stress the general tendency towards an overly broad understanding of the object of legal regulation in Russia and delineate the boundaries of legal regulation. In conclusion, I demonstrate the connection between the disproportionate expansion of the object of legal regulation and the deformation of citizens’ legal consciousness.

In this article, I analyse a concept proposed within German legal science, namely that of the responsibility of legal positivism for promoting National Socialism in the 20th century. An analysis of relevant works by German and Russian legal scholars has shown that the concept rests on false premises and the ideas of positivism had no influence on the criminal National Socialist regime.

In this article, I consider the legal aspects of the EU policy on the integration of immigrants into the host society. The current EU basic law does not give the Union the power to issue legislative acts aimed at harmonizing national rules for the integration of immigrants. However, in the aftermath of the migrant crisis in Europe, this problem has been receiving increased attention. I systematize legal instruments for immigrant integration, analyse the conditions of the system formation, emphasize trends in the policy development, and examine the formation of relevant legislation at a national level in the case of Germany. Using the method of legal analysis, I suggest the following system of legal regulation of the EU immigrant integration policy: ‘soft law’ instruments adopted at the level of the EU; provisions on immigrant integration contained in the legal acts of the Union; relevant national legislation. I conclude that the system of legal regulation of immigrant integration in the EU is two-tier. General principles are established at the Union level and legally binding rules are formulated at national levels.