Theoretical and methodological issues of legal prediction

The article explores the theoretical and practical aspects of predictability of the future of legal systems based on legal forecasting as a direction of scientific activity, designed to formulate the importance of new vectors of legal development for the state, society and the individual. By combining general theoretic, axiological, personal and instrumental methodological means and expanding the ideological field of jurisprudence, legal forecasting contributes to the realization of social needs and state interests. The conversion of theoretical paradigms of legal forecasting into the practical sphere is ensured by the creation of predictive models of regulations and the development of concrete proposals concerning the modernization of legislation to the law-making bodies. At present, there is every reason to speak about the significant shortcomings in the field of legal forecasting both in Russia and worldwide. A clear confirmation of this thesis is the fact that despite the predictability of the coronavirus pandemic (before it was atypical pneumonia, avian influenza, Ebola), no state was ready for full legal regulation in the context of the pandemic and did not think through the legal ways out of it. Operational law-making was conducted everywhere through trial and error, creating internally contradictory and insufficiently effective legal regimes, creating excessive restrictions on human rights and simply legislative confusion, sometimes bordering on absurdities. The haphazardness of the legislative process, which legal forecasting is intended to put a barrier to, is expressed among other things in the number of laws adopted. The existence of a significant number of reference rules, supplements and amendments, "changes to changes" manifold hampers the application of rules, while the development of conceptual draft laws is practically an exception. At the federal level, there is no legal forecasting as a direction of scientific support for lawmaking, and planning is limited to the draft laws submitted to the upcoming session of the State Duma. The situation is no better at the regional level. All this shows that the system of public administration does not in a due measure rely on the powerful predictive potential inherent in the nature of law and legal thought, which includes the understanding of the nature of law and its diverse manifestations in real public life. It follows that the concept of legal forecasting has a universal and timeless significance. It brings together all general theoretical, axiological, personal and instrumental methodological means and provides the conditions for obtaining reliable forecasts regarding the dynamics of legal and related political, economic, social and spiritual phenomena and processes.

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