Problems of jurisdiction in disputes involving a self-employed individual as a special subject of economic activity with an undefined legal status

Abstract

Due to proliferation of the experiment on introduction of special self-employment tax regime across the Russian Federation, the number of self-employed individuals is expected to rise. Moreover, the lockdown brought on by the current pandemic led to a sharp increase in self-employment. This circumstance makes the subject of this research more relevant – the questions of legal status of self-employed individuals in connection to their financial-legal and procedural-legal aspects. The article analyzes the doctrinal approaches towards definition of jurisdiction, the use of which allows overcoming current legislative gap. Research is conducted on the normative act and case law of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation that forms the conceptual approach towards self-employment. For the first time, the activity of a self-employed individual is examined in relation to the concepts of economic, entrepreneurial, and professional activities. The problem of undefined procedural status of a self-employed individual is explored in conjunction with its undefined status in the substantive law. A conclusion is made that such activity should be classified as economic. The scientific novelty consists in posing the question of jurisdiction of disputes involving self-employed individuals. The author concludes on undefined nature of self-employed individual in the substantive law, which leads to legal uncertainty of their procedural status. The uncertainty is expressed in the absence of rules of jurisdiction over disputed involving self-employed individuals. The author makes proposal for changes to procedural legislation.