
Available in Russian
CONTENTS
CONSTITUTIONAL WATCH
Australia, Cuba, Estonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Nigeria, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, USA
LEVELS OF DEMOCRACY
“DRAWERS” TECHNOLOGY IN THE RUSSIAN LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
Sergey Zaikin
This paper describes and analyzes the formation and development of the technology of “drawers” in federal legislative procedure. In the introduction, the author explains his metaphor of a drawer in the context of legislative procedure. The first part of the paper is devoted to a type of the abovementioned technology called “covering,” where the resonant norms in the bill divert the attention from other important provisions. The second part of the paper deals with another type of “drawer”: the transformation. The third part of the paper gives the basic impression about the peculiarities of the constitutional principle of mutual trust between society and governmental bodies. In conclusion, the author underlines the problem of lack of transparency and validity during the adoption of bills, which can lead to a reduction in the level of social trust.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS IN RUSSIA AND IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES: FEATURES OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW REGULATION
Andrey Vershinin
This article reviews a comparative analysis of approaches to the legal regulation of primary elections (primaries) in the United States, Argentina, Uruguay, France, Israel, and Russia. Even though in the United States parties began to hold primaries in the middle of the 19th century, Russian parties drew attention to this institution only in the early 2010s. The author concludes that primaries could have a positive impact on the development of the party system in the Russia.
CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE
ACCESS TO CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE IN RUSSIA AND GERMANY
Elena Gritsenko, Rosemarie Will
This article offers a comparative analysis of the constitutional foundations of access to court and to constitutional justice in Germany and Russia. The main idea of such a comparison is to see how universal problems are solved in various framework conditions, through the prism of the experience of others, to understand and critically assess the achievements of constitutional justice and to conclude the challenges to it. The report also examines how the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation understand basic rights or, respectively, the rights and freedoms of humans and citizens as a subject matter of constitutional protection and how these interpretations affect access to justice.
RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS AS A CONSTITUTIONAL VALUE
Alexander Salenko
The freedom to peaceably assemble has undergone a considerable constitutional and legal evolution in modern Russia over the past twenty-five years. This fundamental freedom at first was fulfilled in the absence of special legislation, and the freedom to peaceably assemble has been implemented quite liberally. However, since 2004, the situation started to change slowly and the freedom to peaceably assemble was exposed to a gradual process of formalization as Russian legislators stipulated new rules and regulations primarily aimed at strengthening state control over the implementation of this constitutional freedom. Finally, law enforcement practice began to produce ambiguous legal constructs, the basic idea of which was to provide further restrictions on the freedom to peaceably assemble. As a result of the activities of judicial authorities, a new legal construct on the latent form of a collective public event was created in Russian law. The author sees his principal task as providing a thorough constitutional and legal analysis of the legal construct described above and to answer the question of constitutionality of this subsequent serious restriction on the freedom to peaceably assemble in Russia.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: AN OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN THEORIES
Alexander Kulnev
This article looks at different theories of freedom of speech, specifically the way scientists and judges articulate its legal nature. The author concentrates on three main theories that have had the highest impact on the doctrine in Russia, the United States, and other countries.
PARADOXES OF UNCONSTITUTIONAL CONSTITUTIONS
Dmitry Shustrov
Compliance with the limits of constitutional change is within the competence of the bodies involved in this process. It is the prerogative of political authorities: the parliament, the head of state, the authorities of the states of federal unity, or the people themselves. However, such bodies may either be in the thrall of their own convictions or belong to the same political platform, which objectively reduces the degree of control over one another, or they may simply have the goal to abuse their power to amend the constitution.
REGIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE
STATUTORY COURTS IN SUBJECTS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: A COMPARATIVE POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANALYSIS
Alexander Sungurov, Anna Zakharova
The development of regional constitutional justice has become an important issue not only for law but also for politics. However, the main emphasis in modern studies has shifted towards the study of primarily legal aspects of the activities of constitutional (statutory) courts. The authors consider that regional constitutional justice has a mixed political and legal nature and requires an interdisciplinary approach based on studying not only the legal but also the political conditions of constitutional courts. In this article, the authors conduct a comparative political and legal analysis of the experience of the emergence and evolution of four statutory courts in the subjects of the Russian Federation: Sverdlovsk, Kaliningrad, Chelyabinsk, and Saint Petersburg.
IN THE RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
REVIEW OF LEGAL REASONING IN RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT JUDGMENTS NOS. 5-P – 13-P • 2019
REVIEW OF LEGAL REASONING IN RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT RULINGS NOS. 2-O, 3-O, 266-O, 274-O • 2019