Methods for identifying and resolving terminological discrepancies between regulatory acts of different levels and their significance for legal monitoring

Abstract

The study addresses the problem of terminological discrepancies between regulatory legal acts of different levels, which undermine the unity of the legal framework, create legal uncertainty, and complicate the exercise of citizens’ rights and the legitimate interests of organizations. The aim of the work is to substantiate methods for identifying and resolving such discrepancies, as well as to demonstrate their key role in effective legal monitoring. The empirical basis consists of federal constitutional and codified acts, laws in various branches of public and private law, subordinate regulatory documents of the constituent entities of the Federation and municipalities, as well as materials of judicial practice of higher courts and lower courts in cases where the interpretation of disputed concepts was decisive for the outcome of the dispute. The methodology relies on formal legal, comparative legal, systemic, and teleological approaches, as well as an analysis of law enforcement practices, which makes it possible to compare competing definitions of such terms as capital construction object, low-income citizen, and related categories in different branches of legislation and to identify the consequences of their inconsistency for taxation, social support, property registration, and other areas. It is shown that the main reasons for terminological fragmentation are the department-specific character of rulemaking, the absence of intersectoral coordination, and insufficient legal and linguistic examination of draft laws at the preparation stage, as well as the active rulemaking of the constituent entities of the Federation, forming their own conceptual frameworks. The necessity is substantiated of combined use of legislative and law enforcement mechanisms of unification, including the establishment of basic cross-sectoral concepts in codified acts, the use of reference norms, the development of specialized glossaries, and the active role of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court in harmonizing practice through official interpretation and the application of general principles for resolving conflicts. Particular attention is paid to the prospect of implementing digital technologies, semantic analysis, and artificial intelligence-based systems capable of automatically identifying discrepancies and integrating into procedures of legal monitoring and rulemaking, which is considered a necessary condition for forming a coherent and transparent conceptual framework of the modern legal system.