“Renaissance” of the “Smart regulation” category in the domestic law-making theory and practice: prerequisites and factors of influence

The main subject of the current issue of the journal “Legal Concept = Pravovaya paradigma” - “ ‘Smart Regulation’ As an Intersectoral Category of Modern Law” - was not chosen by the editorial board by chance. This annotation is a justification of the choice made. The author considers an objective need to popularize the intersectoral category of “smart regulation” in the Russian legal space as a significant argumentative factor, which has long been of key importance in foreign law-making theory and practice and has only recently begun to attract the attention of domestic researchers. The author announces the project supported by the Russian Scientific Foundation in 2021 which is offered by the scientists of the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law of Volgograd State University, aimed at the comprehensive development of a system of smart regulation tools, the study of their legal nature, interrelation and correlation with the classical categories of jurisprudence, the justification of the criteria for the assessment of their efficiency and features of the application in the branches of private and public law. It is noted that the concept of “smart regulation” does not have an absolute novelty. On the one hand, according to the author, it is organically growing out of the ideas that have long been developed in detail in the world political and legal studies. On the other hand, the complex of tools used in the framework of smart regulation includes, along with the new ones, the entire system of classical legal instruments. Some of them acquire a different sound in the conditions of information technology development, including digitalization; for others, the limits and methods of their application are specified. The papers presented in the main topic of the issue and the rest of its headings illustrate numerous options for using modern and classical means of legal regulation in various spheres of public relations, taking into account new information technology opportunities. It is noted that the term “smart regulation”, taking into account the great challenges of modern realities, is often transformed into the term “smart technologies of legal regulation” and is also used in various combinations with different industry and disciplinary concepts. The paper substantiates the inexpediency of using the term “smart technologies” concerning legal regulation in such a narrow sense, limiting it to the context of total informatization of society and technological development. It is argued that we should be talking about the totality of literally all modern legal technologies. It is recommended to interpret “technologies” in a broad sense as a certain method of human activity. And these methods, according to the author, are made smart by the fact that they are chosen, created, and proposed by the representatives of law-making theory and practice as determined by the state of modern scientific knowledge and society. It is also recommended to take into account the subordination of the proposed legal methods and means to the value dominants which are characteristic of modern culture, as well as their ability to act as the organizing core of a particular sphere of the legal regulation of public life.