The article describes the beginnings and content of legislative acts on penalty capital. The views of members of various committees concerning the number and amount of fines are analysed. The problems encountered in law enforcement are revealed and the ways of solving them are suggested. The author studied the archives of Yu Goujon’s factory to show how factory inspectors allocated or denied allocation of penalty capital funds to meet workers’ needs.

The article discusses the background of the adoption of laws regulating the activities of political parties by the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the 1990s. It also examines the conformity of laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation to the Federal legislation. The author presents a brief description of the peculiarities of forming the party system in constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the 1990s, considers the position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the issue of possibility provided for the establishment of regional political parties in Russia.

Numerous theories of international integration are the cornerstone of the European integration process. Though they have influenced the integration process to a certain extent, they have neither solved the most important problem of the European Union - political integration - nor approached its solution. The author investigates the legal problems of the intergovernmentalism theory implementation and its influence on political integration which seems to be a way for the European Union to escape a deep systemic crisis. It is supposed that the theory of intergovernmentalism is the cornerstone of carrying out multi-level political integration within the EU.

The paper considers a number of lines and modes of protecting citizens’ electoral rights which is initiated at the stage of lawmaking. The rules of electoral law become outdated in due course of time and no longer meet changing social, political and economic situation in the country, which naturally requires their improvement. The author analyzes both theoretical issues and statistical data covering both judicial and administrative form of protecting citizens’ electoral rights in the Moscow Region.

The article is devoted to the problem of terminological distinction among “suffrage protection”, “suffrage security” and “suffrage ensurance”. The article contains the author’s definitions of these categories, reveals the main directions of election committees’ activity to protect electoral rights, analyzes the most typical causes of suffrage violations and absenteeism, lists the main problems hindering protection of electoral rights and possible ways of their solution.

The article reveals the procedures of the election committee of the Stavropol Territory on the improvement of the electoral legislation in the Stavropol Territory. The author analyzes the activities of the election committee of the Stavropol Territory in the framework of the legislative initiative, one of the main goals of which is to provide «feedback» between the legislation of the Russian Federation and its practical application in the process of organizing and holding elections.

The electoral rights protection still remains one of problematic issues of legal regulation of elections in the Russian Federation. The electoral laws provide two independent ways of such protection: judicial, based on a constitutional right to court appeal, and administrative -to appeal to the corresponding election committee. The two legal mechanisms supposed to complement each other are often used not for restoration of the legal status of the participant of elections, but to hinder organizing, carrying out, and establishing the results of elections, which often leads to the violation of voters’s rights. The situation is worsened by imperfection of electoral and procedural laws and their enforcement.

The author considers the importance of the principle of law and order for entrepreneuship. The respect for the rule of law on entrepreneurs’ part guarantees legal order. A required condition for strengthening the rule of law in entrepreneuship is legal liability. Common basic provisions of the law will also be: the rule of law and equality of all before the law; the principle of unity in understanding and application of the law; the principle of using rights and freedoms and the violation of other persons’ rights and freedoms; the principle of effective suppression of offences.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the problems and issues related to the prospective development of Russian small and medium business, its significance in the development of modern market economy, ensuring economic security of the state. The emphasis is put on the analysis of the current tax, civil, administrative legislation regulating the activities of small and medium-sized businesses, revealing weaknesses hindering its progressive development. Hence it was proposed to make some changes in standard legal acts with a view to their immediate improvement. The article analyzes the reasons why the number of small and medium-sized enterprises has recently been reduced. Some statistical data were offered for consideration, as well as positive changes in the expansion of functioning of the instruments of state support and current state program of support to small and medium-sized businesses. The authors also proposed measures for the improvement of such programs. The subjects of small and medium-sized businesses are largely dependent not only on legal, but also on economic, financial, political assistance of the state. There is an increasing need to modernize the forms and methods of regulating the interaction between government and subjects of small and medium-sized businesses, to improve the mechanism of realization of programs of support and guarantees in practice. The authors have also taken into account positive experience of countries with developed market economies.

The article discusses the religious institutions of crime and types of criminal punishments of ancient Israel. The author analyzes the Patriarchal period in the history of humanity described in the Book of Genesis and legal prohibitions that existed throughout the Old Testament time. Canon law based on the Old Testament and modern criminal law have many shared points. The author concludes that the experience of Israel in the sphere of religious crimes is required in modern Russia as well as the whole world community.

The article deals with problematic issues of functioning of the Institute of probation in modern socio-economic conditions. The author examines the a decade dynamics of sentencing to probation by courts of the Russian Federation, as well as the indicators of persons from the Criminal-Executive inspections’ lists during the same period. The attention is focussed on controversial and problematic issues concerning the Institute of probation and some discrepencies of current legislation in exercising control over the behavior of conditionally sentenced.

The article examines the problem of comprehension and types of crimes against public order in the Russian legislation in the middle of the 19th century. The author analyzes the provisions of the Laws of the Russian Empire in 1832 and the Penal Code of 1845, discusses the legal nature of these crimes and their evaluation in scientific literature. It has been revealed that the increasing number of crimes against public order in the mid-19th century was triggered by “lowering the threshold of crime” in standard acts and regulations as a result of the authorities striving to prevent the slightest anti-government offences.

Modeling method can be applied at investigating child abuse crimes. Models of crime mechanism allow of tracing all communications and the relations of a criminal event. This article is an attempt to reveal practical significance of the modeling method for the construction of private criminalistic methods of investigating child abuse.