“The latent form of collective public events”: adjudicative and doctrinal positions in Russia and Germany

---

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. Trying to answer this question, the author investigates provisions of Russian constitutional legislation and relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The author also undertakes a comparative study with German constitutional (state) law (Staatsrecht) and the practice of German law enforcement, which were developed over the previous decades with regard to the practical implementation of the freedom to peaceably assemble. The author intentionally focused on a comparison of constitutional legislation and judicial practice in Russia and Germany in order to provide a more detailed comparative analysis of the selected problems. At the same time, the author has also examined relevant arguments of the European Court of Human Rights. Based on comparative constitutional research, the author comes to conclusion that the application of this quasi-legal construction of the latent form of a collective public event in regard to single-person protests or information stands represents a disproportionate limitation of the freedom to peaceably assemble, the constitutional right for free personal development, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, and the freedom of information.

About the author: Alexander Salenko – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law; Associate Professor, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russia.

Citation: Salenko A. (2019) “Skrytaya forma publichnykh meropriyatiy”: sudebnye i doktrinal'nye podkhody v Rossii i Germanii [The latent form of collective public events: adjudicative and doctrinal positions in Russia and Germany]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 79–91. (In Russian).

References

Aranovskiy K. V., Knyazev S. D. (2017) Nenaprasnoe konstitutsionnoe pravosudie [Non vain constitutional jurisprudence]. Sud'ya, no. 12, pp. 40– 47. (In Russian).

Aristova K. (2012) Sudeyskiy aktivizm: blago ili zlo? [Judicial activism: good or evil?]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 3, pp. 128– 135. (In Russian).

Avak'yan S. A. (2015) Konstitutsionnoe pravo Rossii: Uchebny kurs. T. 1 [Constitutional Law of Russia: Training course. Vol. 1], in 2 vols., 5th ed., Moscow: Norma: INFRA-M.

Avdeev D. A. (2018) Yuridicheskiy golos politicheskoy voli rossiyskikh grazhdan, ili Sovremennye problemy publichnykh meropriyatiy [Legal voice of the political will of the Russian citizens, or Modern problems of public events]. Sovremennoe pravo, no. 12, pp. 29–32. (In Russian).

Basangov D. A. (2006) Yuridicheskaya priroda osobogo mneniya sud'i Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii [Legal nature of the dissenting opinion of the judge of the Constitional Court of the Russian Federation]. Zhurnal rossiyskogo prava, no. 2, pp. 24–34. (In Russian).

Blankenagel A., Levin I. (2013) Svoboda sobraniy v Rossiyskoy Federatsii – sdelano v SSSR?: “luchshe my ne mozem” ili “po-drugomu ne khotim”? [Freedom of assembly in the Russian Federation – made in the USSR?: “We cannot do better” or “We do not want another way”?]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 2, pp. 55–62. (In Russian).

Dzhavakyan G. Z. (2016) Pravotvorcheskaya aktivnost' Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF: yuridizatsiya politiki ili politizatsiya konstitutsionnogo pravosudiya [Law-making Activity of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation: Juridization of the Politics or Politization of the Constitutional Justice?]. Konstitutsionnoe i munitsipal'noe pravo, no. 3, pp. 64–69. (In Russian).

Fomicheva O. A. (2016) Voprosy primeneniya terminov pri osushchestvlenii zakonotvorcheskoy funktsii parlamentom [Rally and other public events as a form of law-making activities]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 412, pp. 183–187. (In Russian).

Frankenberg G. (1981) Demonstrationsfreiheit – eine verfassungsrechtliche Skizze. Kritische Justiz (KJ), no. 4, pp. 370–383.

Gericke J. (2016) Heidelberg, 30 Jahre Brokdorf-Beschluss – Versammlungsrecht quo vadis? Die Öffentliche Verwaltung (DÖV). Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht und Verwaltungswissenschaften, no. 22, pp. 948– 956.

Grebennikov V. V. (2017) Pravozashchitnaya funktsiya suda i sudebnoe pravotvorchestvo v Rossii [Human Rights Activism of the Court and Judicial Law-Making in Russia]. Gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 8, pp. 5–11. (In Russian).

Gröpl Ch. (2002) Grundstrukturen des Versammlungsrechts. Jura, no. 1, pp. 18–25.

Hillgruber Ch. (2016) Die Meinungsfreiheit als Grundrecht der Demokratie. Juristen Zeitung (JZ), vol. 71, no. 10, pp. 495–501.

Hopfauf A. (2017) Die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden. Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik (ZRP), no. 4, pp. 124–125.

Janz N., Peters W. (2016) Aktuelle Fragen des Versammlungsrechts – Rechtsprechungsübersicht. Landes- und Kommunalverwaltung (LKV), no. 3, pp. 193–200.

Jarass H., Pieroth B. (2014) Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Kommentar, 13th ed., München: C. H. Beck.

Khramova T. M. (2014) Nebezopasnaya svoboda: o predelakh ogranicheniya svobody sobraniy v tselyakh okhrany obshchestvennogo poryadka i bezopasnosti [Unsafe Freedom: Setting the Limits for Restrictions on Freedom of Assembly aimed at Securing Public Order and Safety]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 3, pp. 42–53. (In Russian).

Kishakovskaya O. (2017) Krovavoe voskresen'e vo Vladivostoke: devyat' let nazad podmoskovnyy OMON podavil khorovod [Bloody Sunday in Vladivostok: nine years ago Moscow region OMON suppressed a khorovod (a round dance)]. PrimaMedia, 21 December. Available at: https://primamedia.ru/news/480731/ (accessed: 20.09.2018). (In Russian).

Kokotov A. N. (2014) O pravotvorcheskom soderzhanii resheniy Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossiyskoy Federatsii [About the law-making content of decisions of the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation]. Rossiyskaya yustitsiya, no. 4, pp. 21–24. (In Russian).

Kondrashev A. (2017) Svoboda sobraniy v Rossii: sistemnye defekty zakonodatel'stva i politiko-pravovaya praktika [Freedom of Assembly in Russia: System Defects of Law and Political and Legal Practices]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 6, pp. 24–44. (In Russian).

Krasnov M., Satarov G. (2013) “Kogda otsutstvuet volya grazhdan, nikakie konstitutsii ne pomogut”: Dialog [“If there is no will of citizens, no constitutions will help”: Dialogue] // Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 6, pp. 33–42. (In Russian).

Krasnov M. A. (2009) Ogranichenie prav cheloveka ili poisk ikh estestvennykh predelov? [Limitation of Human Rights or Search of its Natural Bounds?]. Pravo. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki, no. 2, pp. 103–115. (In Russian).

Kraujuttis S. (2005) Versammlungsfreiheit zwischen liberaler Tradition und Funktionalisierung. Zum Begriff der Versammlung im Sinne des Art. 8 Abs. 1 GG. (Osnabrücker Rechtswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Vol. 62), Köln; Berlin; München: Carl Heymanns Verlag.

Lindner J. F., Bast A. (2018) Die Unzulässigkeit staatlicher Einflussnahme auf Versammlungen. Neue Zeitschrift für Verwaltungsrecht (NVwZ), no. 10, pp. 708–711.

Marshava L. A. (2012) Osoboe mnenie sud'i Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF kak vid neofitsial'nogo tolkovaniya norm Osnovnogo Zakona [Dissenting opinion of the judge of the Constitutional court of the Russian Federation as type of informal interpretation of norms of the Basic Law]. Vestnik Chelyabinskogo universiteta. Seriya: Pravo, no. 27, pp. 27–29. (In Russian).

Morshchakova T. (2017) O nekotorykh aktual'nykh problemakh konstitutsionnogo pravosudiya [Some current issues of constitutional justice development in Russia]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 3, pp. 117–124. (In Russian).

Papier H.-J. (2016) Aktuelle Probleme des Versammlungsrechts. Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt (DVBl), vol. 131, no. 22, pp. 1417–1422. (In German).

Peters A., Ley I. (eds.) (2016) The Freedom of Peaceful Assembly in Europe, Oxford: Hart Publishing; Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Peters W., Janz N. (eds.) (2015) Handbuch Versammlungsrecht: Versammlungsfreiheit, Eingriffsbefugnisse, Rechtsschutz, München: C. H. Beck.

Roggan F., Busch D. (eds.) (2013). Das Recht in guter Verfassung? Festschrift für Martin Kutscha, Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Schlink B. (2012) Proporzionalnost': K probleme balansa fundamental'nykh prav i obshchestvennykh tseley [Proportionality: Finding the balance between fundamental rights and public aims] Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 2, pp. 56–76. (In Russian).

Simonova S. V. (2014) Yuridicheskaya fiktsiya kak priyom zakonodatel'stva RF o svobode sobraniy i praktike ego primeneniya [Legal fiction as an instrument of the Russian public assembly legislation and it's lawenforcement practice]. Aktual'nye problemy rossiyskogo prava, no. 3, pp. 330–341. (In Russian).

Stern K. (ed.). (2006) Das Staatsrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Vol. IV/1: Die einzelnen Grundrechte. Der Schutz und die freiheitliche Entfaltung des Individuums, München: C. H. Beck.

Tomilin A. (2018) Mesto vstrechi zapretit' nel'zya. Ili mozhno? [The meeting place cannot be prohibited. Or can it be?]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no. 6, pp. 117–134. (In Russian).

Tumanov V. A. (1980) K kritike kontseptsii “sudeyskogo prava” [Criticism of the concept of judge-made law]. Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 3, pp. 111–118. (In Russian).

Tumanov V. A. (1990) Prava cheloveka i ispolnitel'naya vlast' [Human rights and executive power]. Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 2, pp. 44–51. (In Russian).

Zeitler S. (2015) Grundriss des Versammlungsrechts, Norderstedt: Neuer Medienverlag.