Available in Russian
Author: Ivan Brikul’skiy
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2023-3-123-149
Keywords: separation of powers; simulacrum; Security council: State Council: president; transit of power
One of the common features of successive constitutional reforms in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus was the creation of rather specific constitutional bodies that do not fit into the traditional model of separation of powers. These are the Security Council in Kazakhstan, the State Council in Russia, and the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly. The author points out that the competence of these bodies remains uncertain and that, regardless of their justification and fixed formal status, their powers allow them to control and restrain other power institutions, including in some cases the president. These bodies do not change the already established governmental hierarchy but actually establish dual power in it. In a system of separation of powers they are superfluous. In this article, these bodies are called constitutional simulacra, their main task being to simulate constitutional reality and compliance with constitutional norms and principles while actually concentrating real power within their own authority. The author notes that the common feature of these bodies is their ad hoc nature and their being strengthened agents of autocracy. Although the question of the true purpose of these bodies remains open, in Russia and Belarus they were also presumably created for the purpose of the transition of power. The traditional problem of any personalistic authoritarian regime is the peaceful transfer of power in the absence of competitive elections and without shocks to the established power structure. There is an insoluble contradiction in any such transition: the “subject of autocracy” must transfer power while retaining its decisive influence in the existing system. If there is no transition of power, there is no need for additional simulation bodies at the constitutional level. Regardless of whether constitutional simulacra are created for the transition of power or as an additional tool of a personalistic regime, they create an institutional conflict that inevitably leads to conflict with other branches of government and to overturning the entire constitutional system.
About the author: Ivan Brikul’skiy – Ph.D. Student, Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law, Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
Citation: Brikul’skiy I. (2023) Konstitutsionnye simulyakry: usilenie personalistskogo rezhima ili tranzit vlasti? [Constitutional simulacra: for strengthening a personalist regime or for a transition of power?]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 123–149. (In Russian).
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* Recognised as a foreign agent in Russia