Constitutional and statutory courts of the subjects of the Russian Federation: between law and politics

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Author: Anna Zakharova

DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2023-1-128-145

Keywords: law; politics; interdisciplinarity; constitutional court; statutory court; subject of the Russian Federation

Abstract

In this article, the author conducts an interdisciplinary study of the constitutional (statutory) courts of the subjects of the Russian Federal. The author proposes and tests original scientific tools that are a symbiosis of the methodologies of jurisprudence and of political science. The study is built on the principle of a case study, which allows for an in-depth study of each of the cases included in the sample. The sample includes 8 cases: the constitutional (statutory) courts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Mordovia, Ingushetia and Karelia, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions. As methods for collecting and analyzing data, the author uses content analysis of legal acts, court decisions, specialized research, and media publications and also expert interviews. The empirical material used in the article is of particular value. The group of experts interviewed by the author is unique and includes judges, employees of constitutional (statutory) courts, officials, and representatives of the scientific community whose professional activities are directly or indirectly related to these courts. Using the example of constitutional (statutory) courts, the author shows how the proposed interdisciplinary tool makes it possible to study aspects that are inaccessible within the framework of a disciplinary approach. The study is structurally divided into thematic sections and arranged chronologically from the period of creation of these constitutional (statutory) courts to the moment of their centralized abolition. This structure of the article allows a detailed analysis of the legal and political aspects of constitutional (statutory) courts in different periods of their development. The author analyzes and develops existing theoretical approaches to conducting political and legal research, suggests directions for joint study by jurisprudence and political science, and identifies issues that require further discussion. The practice-oriented interdisciplinary tool described in the article is universal. Formed from the methods of jurisprudence and political science, this tool will allow research of institutions which have a mixed political and legal nature, like bodies for constitutional normative control, from a new, more complex side.

About the author: Anna Zakharova – Lawyer, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Zakharova A. (2023) Konstitutsionnye i ustavnye sudy v sub’ektakh Rossii mezhdu pravom i politikoy: primenenie mezhdistsiplinarnogo instrumentariya [Constitutional and statutory courts of the subjects of the Russian Federation: between law and politics]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 128–145. (In Russian).

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