CCR № 5 (126) 2018

Available in Russian

Available for free

CONTENTS

CONSTITUTIONAL WATCH

AUGUST – SEPTEMBER • 2018

India, Moldova, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland

POST-SOCIALIST COSTITUTIONALISM

CONSTITUTIONALISM AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES

Irina Kenenova

This article contains the methodological framework and results of a comparative analysis of constitutionalism and political leadership in Central and Eastern European countries carried out in a study of constitutional and legal development and political practices of the Visegrad Group. The challenges of populism, deconstructing constitutionalism limits of defining this term, as well as the spread of quasi-institutionalism in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are being addressed through the development of constitutional systems and political leadership practices. The author argues that the most destructive feature of populism is the substitution of a publicly declared value basis of politics by the private and corporate interests of elite groups.

CONSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY

“THE GHOST HAUNTING DECISIONS OF EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS”: WHAT TO DO WITH CONSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY?

Alexander Blankenagel

Constitutional identity has grown to be a very popular concept among European constitutional courts in the last decade. National constitutional courts use it against an, what they see as, unsuitable intrusion of international law into their national legal orders, be it against EU law or be it against the European Convention on Human Rights as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.

CONSTITUTIONALIST'S GUIDEBOOK: BOLIVIA

BOLIVIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: INSTITUTIONS OF TERRITORIAL AUTONOMY AND COMMUNITY JUSTICE

Igor Irkhin

This article emphasizes that Bolivia has embarked on a new stage in the development of constitutionalism, due to the need to overcome the previously existing deficit of democratic elements in the organization of state and society, as characterized by social inequality and cultural homogenization. The national Constitution establishes a radical concept in the approach of power to the people. At the same time, the most important ideological component of the Bolivian constitution is an attempt to break ties with neoliberalism.

AMICUS CURIAE: ITS PURPOSE IN CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION

THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD: AMICI CURIAE BRIEFS IN RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Olga Kryazhkova

Non-governmental organizations in Russia have accumulated experience in preparing and providing the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation amici curiae (“friends of the court’s”) briefs. In theory and practice, “friends of the court” are considered to be those who provide the court with useful information that has a bearing on the current case and the court can use this information to reach the decision. The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation calls these briefs “initiative scientific opinions”, with the term being confirmed in 2017 in the Rules of the Constitutional Court. The purpose of this article is to assess whether amici curiae briefs influence the Court’s decisions.

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

NO LESS THAN A TRIAL: THE CONSTITUTIONAL NATURE OF ARBITRATION IN THE RUSSIAN LEGAL SYSTEM

Armen Dzhagaryan, Olga Benedskaya

In the modern world, the effective realization of the tasks of justice is largely determined by the development of alternative jurisdictional institutions (as opposed to state-run court systems), including arbitration. Arbitration is a method of resolving civil and other legal disputes that is generally recognized in legal society and that is based on the autonomy of will and equality of subjects of legal relations, as well as broad procedural discretion. Arbitration is a private jurisdictional activity and is a characteristic of self-organization in civil society, which is called upon to play a key role in the development of the rule of law. However, it cannot be opposed to the standards of justice, namely the standards of independence, impartiality, and fairness, which are of a general jurisdictional character.

POINT OF VIEW

WE, THE MULTINATIONAL PEOPLE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION…

Victor Cherepanov

The concept of “the People”, being interdisciplinary, is applied in various sciences, each of which highlights its specific content and denotation. In sociology this term designates a community united by a single territory of a state, as well as by firm economic, social, and spiritual connections and relations. In ethnography the people are considered to be an ethnic community united by a common language, origin, specific culture, particular way of life, traditions and customs, national consciousness, a common selfchosen name, and self-identification. Such a concept has an explicit and definite correlation with empirical reality – with real people who, interacting with each other, enter into concrete social relations. In the constitutional legal conceptual space, whose “inhabitants” are abstract legal constructions, legal phantoms and fictions, the people act as the bearer of Comparative Constitutional Review sovereignty and the source of power. However, in the scientific comprehension of this ideally typical constitutional model, the empirical notion of the people as a community is often used, which does not allow one to adequately reveal the regularities underlying Russian statehood, and leads to the emergence of a contradiction forming a methodological problem, the study of which this article is devoted to.

IN THE RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

REVIEW OF LEGAL REASONING IN THE RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT JUDGMENTS NOS. 23-P – 31-P • 2018

REVIEW OF LEGAL REASONING IN THE RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT RULINGS NOS. 1403-О, 1671-О-R, 1676-О, 1677-О, 1711-О • 2018