The Constitutional Court of Russia in 1995–2000: historiography of the issue from the standpoint of a constitutional scholar

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Author: Mikhail Mityukov

DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2024-4-167-194

Keywords: constitutional justice; historiography of the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation; the second phase of the development of the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation in 1995–2000; Federal Constitutional Law “On the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation”; systematization of court decisions, their novelization, quantitative and qualitative scholarly evaluation; dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court; “depoliticization” of the Constitutional Court; using the democratic potential of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in the Constitutional Court activities

Abstract

This article is based on documentary, public, literary, and journalistic archival sources and is a result of the completed (continued) study of the second stage of the development of constitutional justice. Based on personal experience, gained in the years 1994–2000 as the Chairman of the Commission of the President of the Russian Federation on legislative proposals and First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma in the first convocation, and then as the Authorized Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Constitutional Court, the author interprets the judicial activity of this body (the development of the Constitutional Court and the Constitutional Court`s judges) and explains the aggravation of the problem of execution of its decisions during the second half of the 1990-s. The author evaluates the modernization period of the functioning of the Court and notes, in general, its significant role in in the intensification of the development of scholarly research in the sphere of constitutional justice. He outlines the doctrinal predictions from that time and discusses the immediate prospects for the development of the Russian model of constitutional justice as they appeared then. The author also states that at this stage of development, the contradictions of a political and organizational nature within the Federal Assembly and in the Constitutional Court itself have laid the foundation for discussions about potential changes to the Federal Constitutional Law “On the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation”. The scholars and practitioners had already supported the idea of introducing written proceedings into the constitutional judicial process, improving the mechanism for executing decisions of the Constitutional Court. But the proposals for a significant “revision” of the Federal Constitutional Law in terms of reducing the age limit for holding office of a constitutional judge and expanding the grounds for termination of judge’s powers, the possibility of appealing or reviewing decisions of the Constitutional Court, and “creating a judicial body” coordinating all the courts, including the Constitutional Court, were rejected or not perceived as serious. In general, this article shows that the Constitutional Court of the late 1990s — early 2000s, having overcome the mostly contradictory process of politicization, entered the new century with the “political and legal halo” of a completely modern by international standards judicial constitutional body with a tendency to shift the center of its priorities towards the protection of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens and legal entities.

About the author: Mikhail Mityukov – Candidate of Legal Sciences, Professor; Professor of the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law of the Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia .

Citation: Mityukov M. (2024) Deyatel'nost' Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossii v 1995–2000 godakh: istoriografiya voprosa s pozitsii konstitutsionalista [The Constitutional Court of Russia in 1995–2000 (on historiography of the issue from the standpoint of a constitutional scholar)]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.33, no.4, pp.167–194. (In Russian).

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