Is it possible to abolish “serfdom’s” electoral right in Russia?

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Author: Victor Cherepanov

DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2017-5-116-127

Keywords: right to vote; место жительства; место пребывания; региональные и муниципальные выборы; территориальный публичный коллектив; федеральные

Abstract

This article demonstrates that a significant number of Russian citizens that are not currently living at the place where they are registered in domiciles do not possess an active electoral right at the place where they are actually living. Many of these citizens also do not have any opportunity to participate in regional and municipal elections at the place where they are registered in a domicile because of its remoteness from the place where they are actually living. As a result, a real contradiction has arisen between the constitutional guarantees of the right of Russian citizens to elect their representatives in government bodies and the impossibility of its realization for many of these citizens because of the census of residence. This contradiction constitutes the problem of electoral serfdom, for which the conceptual approach has proposed a solution. According to this solution, a citizen possesses an active electoral right only as a member of some territorial public collective that serves as the source of power for local electoral organs. Hence, all the members of the appropriate territorial public collective that are not restricted by other electoral censuses should be endowed with an active electoral right, and data about their involvement in social relations that unite these citizens in this territorial public collective might be considered as indicators of their belonging to the collective. On the basis of such an approach it is possible to discuss ways of finding a solution to the problem of electoral serfdom, as is done in this article.

About the author: Victor Cherepanov – Doctor of Sciences in Law, Professor, Stavropol State Agrarian University, Stavropol’, Russia.

Citation: Cherepanov V. (2017) Mozhno li otmenit’ v Rossii “krepostnoe” izbiratel’noe parvo? [Is it possible to abolish “serfdom’s” electoral right in Russia?]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no.5, pp.116–127. (In Russian).

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