Party and independent-individual representation in the mechanism of ensuring the democratic mandate of the popular trust in a constitutional state

About the author:

Alla N. Gutorova, Cand. Sci. (Jur), Associate Professor, Department of Constitutional Law, Southwest State University (Kursk); allagutorova@mail.ru; ORCID: 0000-0003-0345-6903; SPIN: 2021-0929

Abstract:

The party system in contemporary Russia has a number of features that should be taken into account in the course of the legal research and search for the optimal correlation of party and independent (individual) representation in the constitutional mechanism of the popular trust mandate. In our opinion, it is the features of the Russian party system at the present stage of its historical development, not multiparty as such, that determine the main vector of constitutional-legal regulation of these public relations and the relevant assessment of this phenomenon in Russian legal science.

The research methodology is based on a comparative legal method that allowed the comparison of party and independent representation in the popular representation system. The use of the historical and legal method is determined by the need to identify the features of the development of the party system in modern Russia through the prism of historical facts. The forecasting method has allowed determining the prospects of further development of the Russian political system.

The constitutional system of the Russian Federation over the past decades has demonstrated a very decisive rejection of the one-party ideological system and the transition to the nascent but steadily developing multiparty system. As the real multiparty system and political competition become stronger, the individual-independent form of popular representation will give way to the party mandate of popular trust until the institution of “independent” single-member deputies becomes a thing of the past, not only in the State Duma, but also in the legislative (representative) bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. “Independent-individual” national representation is more preferably for the local government, that is non-partisan national representation (in the general federal sense). By its constitutional and legal nature, the municipal popular representation is “independent and individual” in relation to political parties.

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