Values of the Russian Constitution: the observer effect?

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The question of the value content of the Constitution of the Russian Federation is of fundamental importance for the science of constitutional law. The practice of resolving conflicts arising between various actors and the global prospects for the development of constitutionalism in the future depend on the resolution of this issue. Many constitutional formulas require clarification of their content, but they still have to remain the basis for the clarification that is being made. The proposed response to the article of S.Belov considers the ratio of meanings in the text of the Constitution and the results of its interpretation; descriptive and prescriptive approaches to constitutionalism; object and subject of scientific knowledge. The observer effect known since the formation of the nonclassical paradigm indicates a change in the observed system as a result of the observation itself. Understanding this effect actualizes the problem of cognition of real systems; awareness of distortions introduced by research does not remove, but, on the contrary, sharpens the problem of choosing a research methodology that would allow one to obtain the desired knowledge about an object that existed before distortion. For constitutional law, which has a clearly expressed value component and, accordingly, is associated with the involvement of assessments of the cognizing subject, the problem of choosing arguments, including historical and communicative ones, requires great attention in the light of the danger of adjusting the argument to a given result. This article substantiates the idea, which means that interpretation of the constitution must take into consideration its normative nature, essence, functions, and aims.

About the author: Alexandra Troitskaya – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Troitskaya A. (2019) Tsennosti rossiyskoy Konstitutsii: effekt nablyudatelya? [Values of the Russian Constitution: the observer effect?]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.28, no.4, pp.84–98. (In Russian).

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