Available in Russian
Author: Viktor Balakaev
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2026-2-103-134
Keywords: order to enact legislation; order to create legislation; enforcement of constitutional court decisions; constitutional court directives to the legislature; constitutional justice; separation of powers; margin of appreciation
Constitutional courts may address the legislator with a requirement to amend legal regulation in order to remedy a violation of the constitution (orders to enact legislation). However, the fate of such a requirement depends not only on the legislator, but also on the court itself: on how categorical it is, how specific it is, and how reasonable the timeframe for compliance is — in other words, on whether its “configuration” proves adequate to the particular circumstances of the case and to the objectives pursued by the court. Successfully addressing this task is hardly possible without an understanding of the parameters along which orders to enact legislation can be configured. This study is devoted to developing a typology of constitutional-judicial orders that reflects the diversity and constitutional significance of these parameters. Drawing on the legal systems of Germany, Canada, Italy, Russia, South Africa and other countries, the author demonstrates how constitutional-judicial orders to en act legislation are formulated, implemented, and ignored, and why this occurs. The article shows how bodies of constitutional justice may refine their orders to legislators (by identifying the specific legal act requiring correction; the range of issues to be resolved; possible modes of compliance; or even the precise wording of a norm that will apply temporarily), and examines the benefits and risks associated with each method of specification. The study also explores how constitutional courts impose temporal limits on legislators for complying with their orders and how legislatures respond to such limits. On the basis of both successful and unsuccessful precedents, a checklist is developed which, if followed, may enhance the effectiveness of temporal constraints. The proposed typology of constitutional-judicial orders not only systematizes their various forms but also evaluates each of them. It is argued that significant drawbacks are inherent both in the most abstract orders and in the most detailed ones, as well as in those that impose temporal limits and those that do not. Accordingly, the typology presented here is intended to assist in selecting the most appropriate configuration of a constitutional-judicial order in each particular case, so as to achieve the most precise and timely elimination of constitutional defects by the legislator. It also creates a basis for developing criteria to assess the quality of constitutional-judicial orders to enact legislation and their potential enforceability, thereby bringing us closer to addressing the problem of ineffective implementation of acts of constitutional justice.
About the author: Viktor Balakaev – Junior Researcher, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Citation: Balakaev V. (2026) Konstitutsionno-sudebnye predpisaniya v adres zakonodatelya: voprosy tipologii [The typology of constitutional courts’ orders to enact legislation]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 103–134. (In Russian).
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