Constitutional legal values: concept, types, and hierarchy

About the author:

Abstract:

Constitutional values are fundamental factors in determining the vector of development of the domestic state and law. Analyzing the law enforcement practice, as well as the interpretative activity of constitutional justice bodies, primarily the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, it is possible to trace which values in the event of legal conflicts receive priority over others. This, in turn, allows most researchers to talk about the hierarchy of constitutional values.

What constitutes constitutional values and what should be considered as such is highly controversial in the legal literature. In this article, the author considers constitutional values, analyzes their legal nature and place among other legal values. It offers an author’s vision of understanding constitutional values and their difference from constitutional principles and other provisions of a constitutional nature.

It is proposed that the constitutional values include legal freedom, property relations, public order and state security. Constitutional values should not be confused with other provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The author analyzes the opinions expressed regarding the classification and hierarchy of constitutional values. The problems of their institutionalization at present in the Russian Federation are substantiated, as well as some possible ways of overcoming their speedy implementation in contemporary social reality are expressed.

It is concluded that the implementation of constitutional values entirely depends not only on social and economic conditions, but also on the system of public authorities created in the state whose activities should contribute to the realization of individual legal freedom, protection of various forms of ownership, ensuring public law and order and state security.

The research methodology is based on the dialectical method, which made it possible to identify the features of constitutional-legal values and their place in the system of socially significant values of public order. The use of the comparative (comparative legal) method contributed to the determination of the properties of those values that may be called constitutional, and to find differences from other legal values. With the help of historical and prognostic methods, the invariability of constitutional and legal values was substantiated and proved regardless of the historical development of the state and law, which indicates their universal (general) nature.

References:

1. Avdeev D. A. 2017. “The constitutionalization of legal thinking of citizens as condition for ensuring human rights”. Konstitutsionnoye i munitsipalnoye pravo, no. 3, pp. 19-22. [In Russian]

2. Avdeev D. A. 2018. “Constitution of the Russian Federation. Twenty Five Years Later”. Konstitutsionnoye i munitsipalnoye pravo, no. 12, pp. 37-41. [In Russian]

3. Bondar N. S. 2010. Constitutional law as the fundamental value of a democratic state of law (based on the scientific heritage of Academician O. E. Kutafin). LEX RUSSIA. Nauchnyye trudy MGYUA. vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 260-295. [In Russian]

4. Yereklintseva Ye. V. 2010. “Sovereignty and democracy as constitutional values modern Russia”. Cand. Sci. (Jur.) diss. Chelyabinsk, 25 pp. [In Russian]

5. Kazantseva O. L., Rudt Yu. L., Vorobyeva M. N. 2013. Constitutional values: modern experience of Russia and foreign countries: monograph. Ye. S. Anichkin (ed.). Barnaul: Izdatelstvo Altajskogo universiteta, 137 pp. [In Russian]

6. Kazantseva O. L. 2013. “On the features of the legal nature of constitutional values as a category of Russian law”. Altayskiy vestnik gosudarstvennoy i munitsipalnoy sluzhby, no. 10, pp. 74-75. [In Russian]

7. Karaseva I. A. 2014. “Competition of constitutional values in the law enforcement practice of Russia and foreign states”. Sravnitelnoye konstitutsionnoye obozreniye, no. 4, pp. 75-85. [In Russian]

8. Kashtanova Ye. A. 2012. “On the issue of constitutional values as axiological and legal categories”. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta MVD Rossii, no. 1, pp. 148-152. [In Russian]

9. Klochko Ye. I. 2015. “Approaches to the definition of ‘constitutional values’ in the theory of constitutional law of Russia and foreign countries”. Vestnik RUDN. Seriya Yuridicheskiye nauki, no. 2, pp. 115-124. [In Russian]

10. Kondrashov A. A. 2018. “The conflict of constitutional values in the theory and practice of constitutional justice in Russia”. Vestnik Sibirskogo yuridicheskogo instituta MVD Rossii, no. 4 (33), pp. 21-29. [In Russian]

11. Collection of legislation of the Russian Federation. 2011. Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated June 30, 2011 No. 14-P “On the case on the verification of the constitutionality of the provisions of clause 10 of part 1 of article 17 of the Federal Law ‘On the State Civil Service of the Russian Federation’ and article 20.1 of the Law of the Russian Federation ‘On Police’ in connection with complaints of citizens L. N. Kondratieva and A. N. Mumolin”. No. 28. St. 4261. [In Russian]

12. Rayanov F. M. 2019. Value principles of the modern constitutional system and problems in their implementation in our country. Konstitutsiya Respubliki Bashkortostan – 25 let: itogi i perspektivy razvitiya: Materialy Vserossiyskoy konferentsii, posvyashchennoy 25-letiyu Konstitutsii Respubliki Bashkortostan. (December 19-21, 2018). Z. I. Yenikeyeva, F. R. Muratshina. (ed.). Ufa: Mir pechati, pp. 142-146. [In Russian]

13. Rudt Yu. A. 2019. “The balance of constitutional values in the doctrine of constitutional law and the practice of bodies of constitutional justice of the Russian Federation”. Cand. Sci. (Jur.) diss. Omsk, 34 pp. [In Russian]

14. Snezhko O. 2005. “Legal nature of constitutional values of modern Russia”. Sravnitelnoye konstitutsionnoye obozreniye, no. 2(51), pp. 7-14. [In Russian]

15. Sukhanova A. A. 2015. “Constitutional values of modern Russia: hierarchy and competition”. Vestnik Chelyabinskogo universiteta, no. 23(378). Pravo, i. 44, pp. 53-57. [In Russian]

16. Tayeva N. Ye. 2009. “The norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation as a form of expression of social values”. Konstitutsionnoye i munitsipalnoye pravo, no. 5, pp. 2-5.