An international collective of 29 researchers formed at South Ural State University completed an international research project. The scientific book Principles of Civil Law and their Realization has been published.
The preparation for this work began in the spring of 2015, when the department of civil law and civil procedure of the SUSU Legal Institute became the space for the formation of an international group of researchers who decided to carry out some ambitious research.
The collective of researchers, which includes representatives of the academic society of neighboring states, brought together the efforts for creating the modern scientific concept “principles of civil law and their realization”. The center of this research group was international researchers who represent famous academic and scientific institutions: the Estonian Mainor Business School, Belorussian State University, International University MITSO (Minsk), National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Research Institute of Private Law, the ABConsult Õppekeskus academic center, and Caspian University. Our authors include: RAS, Yu.K. Tolstoy; Russian Prime Minister D.A. Medvedev; Russian Minister of Justice A.V. Konovalov; retired chairman of the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court A.A. Ivanov, chairmain of the Moscow City Court O.A. Egorova, plenipotentiary of the Russian president in the Russian Constitutional Court M.V. Kortov, RAS academic O.E. Kutafin, film director E.A. Ryazanov, and many more.
The co-director and administrator of the project, Tikhon Podshivalov, said:
“29 lawyers worked on this book. Among them were researchers, attorneys, public prosecution officers, representatives of the judicial branch, and representatives of the notarial and legal consulting professions; researchers from Russia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus; academics, doctors, and candidates of legal sciences. Thanks to all of them as a whole, and not one individual member, it became possible to prepare such respectable scientific work.”
The book researches questions of establishment and the characteristics of the contents and realization of principles of civil law, gives a general understanding of the principles of civil law, and pays special attention to the principles of good faith and free choice. A significant portion of the work puts an accent on questions of realizing the principles of civil law as well as the systematization and hierarchical ties of these principles.
The hottest topic among the hundreds of research ideas represented by the researchers on the book’s 400 pages is the conclusion that the principle of legality is moving to the back burner and the principle of good faith is coming to the forefront. This is caused by the fact that legislators understand that it doesn’t matter how hard he tries – right after the approval of a law, loopholes will be created, and these loopholes more often than not are already being developed before the law comes into power. Therefore, in private legal regulation, the principle of good faith is given more legal bearing than formal study of the law.
The department of civil law and civil proceedings is moving step-by-step towards the development of certain scientific ideas. In the last few years the following research projects have been realized in a collective-research format: “Limits on exercising rights for participants of property turnover” (2012-2014); “Material and procedural issues of exercising and protecting civil rights” (2014-2015); “The rights of participants of civil turnover: general characteristics, acquisition, and protection” (2015).
“The most important thing is that the collective knowledge of organizing research at an international level will be used to carry out new research projects with wider subjects of research. As part of this work, the Laboratory of Civil Law was created not long ago, and we plan on realizing the research program entitled principles of civil law and their interaction with principles of public law, which will be carried out in a few departments of the SUSU Legal Institute. Such multidisciplinary research projects will be a push forwards toward the publication of civil law research on both the Russian and international levels. Research of the issues of realizing the principles of branch legal sciences will create an optimal foundation to attract legal scholars to the international scientific community and step up to the international level of research work,” summed up the project’s co-director and administrator, Tikhon Podshivalov.