Local self-government in new constitutional conditions

About the author:

Abstract:

In 2020, a constitutional reform was carried out in Russia, the provisions of which significantly affected the regulation of local self-government, as well as the entire system of state structure of the country.

At first glance, the changes are not fundamentally new, since many of them are the consolidation of the provisions of the current legislation or the established policy of the state. Nevertheless, constitutional norms significantly expand the discretionary powers of state authorities, which may lead to a lack of constitutional guarantees for individual institutions.

The formulation in the text of the constitution of a unified system of public authority is one of the most important changes that can affect the future of local self-government in Russia. Public authorities enter the system based on the principles of consensual interaction and coordination of activities within interests of the population.

The novelty of the article is determined by an integrated approach to the study of the essence of the unified system of public authority, of assigning citizens a central place in the system, as well as of introducing the category «unified system of public authorities» into the nomenclature. The main changes are examined through the prism of increasing the level of citizens’ involvement in participation in local self-government, which will have a positive impact on the legal culture of society. The author touches upon the problems of the implementation of local self-government in the federal territories and proposes possible ways of improving the legislation. The author also analyzes the American experience of local self-government regulation and approaches to placement of municipal authorities in the federal system.

The formal legal method, being the basic one for legal science, is used to study the essence of local self-government, as an element of a unified system of public authority, and the placement of citizens in this system on the basis of studying and interpreting the norms of domestic legislation. When applying the elements of the comparative legal method, the relation between the approaches to understanding certain issues in Russia and in the United States will be taken into consideration.

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