Available in Russian
Author: Danil Mamaev
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2023-5-81-102
Keywords: discrimination; equal protection; gender equality; judicial scrutiny; the Constitutional Court of Russia; the Supreme Court of the United States
This article presents a critical view of the Constitutional Court of Russia’s gender equality jurisprudence, in particular the legal methodology which the Constitutional Court utilizes in its decisions in such cases. In order to demonstrate the variety of types of judicial scrutiny, the author first analyzes the relevant jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is noted that the turning point case in Supreme Court jurisprudence made sex-based classifications subject to a more severe level of judicial scrutiny than rational basis review, thus cementing the idea that gender discrimination exists in the law. In the next part of the article the author reviews the gender equality jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Russia. The author argues that, when considering gender equality cases, the Constitutional Court employs a type of judicial scrutiny that is similar, if not identical, to the rational basis review, although the methodology itself as employed by the Court in other equal protection cases is different and not flawed. The author suggests that what allows for this methodological defect is the uncertainty of the terms “reasonable justification” and “objective justification”, contending that these two cannot be considered synonymous. Furthermore, the author asserts that the extensive use of sex-based classifications in Russian law might be a result of the Constitutional Court’s unwillingness to treat them as inherently suspect, and, given that sex is first in the list of protected characteristics in the anti-discrimination provision of the Constitution, the Court’s position is not as consistent with the constitutional text as the Court maintains. What is needed to remedy the situation is to interpret the Constitution’s anti-discrimination provision as mandating some sort of hierarchy of protected characteristics. This would mean, first, that sex-based classifications cannot be treated as less constitutionally suspect than race-based or ethnicity-based ones, and second, that they warrant at least as severe a level of judicial scrutiny. It appears that this methodological approach to sex-based classifications could serve as a significant deterrent to legislators’ continuing use of such classifications when passing new laws, especially when state interests can be achieved through less drastic means.
About the author: Danil Mamaev – Ph.D. Student, Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law, Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
Citation: Mamaev D. (2023) Metodologiya nediskriminatsii: podkhody Verkhovnogo suda SShA i Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF k delam o ravnopravii polov [Methodology for non-discrimination: gender equality jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court of Russia]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 81–102. (In Russian).
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