The offense on the invented for the sake of "Public Power" Russian Constitution

Most readers are sure legislation is a tedious theme? The campaign to introduce amendments to the Constitution of Russia shows that lawmaking is an interesting category.

I want to acquaint readers with some amendments that have already been made to the Constitution of Russia. Not all Russian citizens approve these amendments. This was reported by the coordinators of the appeal of citizens of Russia to the Council of Europe.It turns out that not only the internal enemies of Kremlin are attacking the Russian Constitution, but now certain political circles in Europe have joined these dissidents. The Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe decided to conduct an urgent legal review of the amendments to the Russian Constitution and the procedures for their adoption. Thereby, the request contained in the appeal was satisfied, under which more than 200 thousand Russian citizens signed. The amendments will be considered by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the so-called Venice Commission).

Amendments to the Russian Constitution were initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. One of them, introduced later by the elderly woman-cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, provides for the possibility for Putin to run for another two presidential terms (the so-called "nullification" of terms).

Strictly speaking, this is all you need to know about the new Constitution of Russia, that it is enough to know. But there are nuances and details. We will make a brief and superficial consideration of.

Amendments to the constitution. There are many of them. 46 articles of the basic law of Russia are changed or supplemented.

The new constitution of Russia has already been approved. The legislative bodies of the country and representative bodies of all subjects of the Federation unanimously approved the document. The so-called popular vote of these amendments is a purely formal and rather even an agitation event. Previously, in no constitutional law has the approval of the Constitution by the people of Russia been established. Only in the new law on amendments to the Constitution "On improving the regulation of certain issues of the organization and functioning of public power" does there exist a chapter on popular vote, which is appointed by presidential decree. Moreover, the comic of the situation is that the President has not signed this law. He promised to sign only after the popular approval of the amendments. Enchanted circle. After all, if the law on amendments to the Constitution had been signed by the President of the country, then no vote would have been required.After all, amendments and additions have already been approved by all who are supposed to approve this. In addition to the people. Although all the people's representatives with full justification approved this document. But the coughing bats virus prevented. Voting was postponed for an indefinite period. Wallets were closed, but not for long. Recently, there have been reports that it can be scheduled for July 1 or 8. In short, time has come to think.

What does "public authority" mean?

An important novelty of the Amendment Law was the introduction of the category of "public authority" into the Basic Law, as well as the constitutional regulation of the foundations of its organization. This supplement needs to be understood, including "in hot pursuit". Following the Constitutional Court, which, when evaluating the provisions of the Law, resolved "exclusively legal issues", I will also limit myself to legal issues in considering this Law.

The provisions on the unity of public authority create the potential for its effective organization and implementation at all levels (federal, regional, municipal) in the interests of citizens. Moreover, they set a new trend in the constitutional development of the country.

Leave aside empty philosophies. Read what legislators have come up with in the new Constitution for local government in Russia. Nevertheless, since 1990 in the Leningrad City Council to this day I have been interested in this issue, developed local self-government in St. Petersburg. The end of Russian local self-government in the sense of "local government", as it is understood in the Liberty Charter of 800 years ago, is coming. The new category of "public authority", uniting all branches of state power, local government and social movements (within the meaning), in the Constitution puts local government under the full control of state government officials. In my memory, regarding the interaction of state and municipal authorities, the discussion has evolved from hypertrophied approaches to the independence of local self-government to proposals to build a system of local public administration and the alienness of local self-government for Russia. Now the unity of public authority with the allocation of subsystems of state power and local self-government seems to be the end of local freedoms. The constitutional requirement to establish the framework of local self-government and the influence of state bodies on local self-government by federal law only means that Russian lawmakers, who unanimously approve everything that comes to them from the Kremlin, quickly enact such laws that the municipality does not seem to have much. The mere fact that municipal deputies independent of state power under the 1993 Constitution have recently approved candidates for the position of Governor (state office!) Shows a tendency to merge branches and levels of power in Russia into a single vertical. Disappointing.

Public authority is the political power of the ruling class, regardless of the specific state forms of its organization and manifestation; one of the most important signs of the state. Usually opposed to public power, that is, the power of society. The emergence of public authority is associated with the emergence of the first states.

Public power is distributed according to the territorial principle, everyone who is in a certain "subject" territory obeys it. These "all" represent a subservient people, population, set of abstract subjects (subjects or citizens). For public authorities, it does not matter if they are subject to kinship, ethnic ties, or not. Public authority not in its territory is subordinated to all, including foreigners (with rare exceptions). Public political authority (power) is characterized by the following formal features:

• unites the population of the country on a territorial basis, creates a territorial organization of the subjects, a political association integrated by public-power relations and institutions;
• carried out by a special apparatus that does not coincide with all members of society and exists at the expense of taxes, an organization that manages the company on the basis of coercion up to violence;
• possesses the sovereignty and prerogative of lawmaking.

About the age of the Russia and terms of president

What are these amendments and additions to the Constitution of Russia? There are a lot of them, over a hundred repairs.

The main amendment, according to political scientists, is to not count four presidential terms of V. Putin (from 2000 to the present). Forget about these deadlines! Start the history of the country from scratch. Let V. Putin (although he already has a pensioner) acquire the right to run again, fight with strong competitors for the presidency of Russia. How strong will these competitors be, I hope readers can guess? Hire some comedians for the retirement candidate for the company. Not even as popular as the young current president of Ukraine. Or they will find a beauty, like the former president of Croatia, for which young men will come to vote. After all, this electorate at another time and for other candidates cannot be driven to the polling station to vote even with a broom; they will not lure gingerbread!

From now on, the president of Russia is eternal. And what about the age of the state itself?

This is stated in part 2 of Article 67.1. amendments. We quote:

2. The Russian Federation, united by a thousand-year history, preserving the memory of the ancestors who transmitted to us the ideals and faith in God, as well as the continuity in the development of the Russian state, recognizes the historically established state unity.

We stumbled on the word "thousand-year (millennial)" as applied to history. Not believing themselves, we went to check the dictionaries. In all interpretations, "a thousand," it’s ten hundred, one hundred tens. The second meaning, as the final part of a compound word meaning existence, is a multiple of one thousand in the first part of the word - two thousand years old, three thousand years old, etc. Now a simple arithmetic: 2020 - 1000 = 1020. i.e. the formula of Part 2 of the proposed Article 67.1 of the Constitution does not cover the events of the unifying history of the Russian Federation until 1020 A.D.

Thus, the reign of Grand Duke Vladimir, who died in 1015 (?), Is not included in the state chronology, which operates on amendments to the Constitution. Consequently, the Baptism of Rus in 988 did not enter, and all that was before that, up to Rurik. But Rurik is a real Russian man, a Russian of an unknown Varangian clan-tribe!

But in what territory was a Millenium? Public authority, as we wrote above, is exercised in a certain territory. This means - the State. Neither Siberia, nor the Far East, especially the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, nor even the Volga Region fit into the fantastic thousand-year history of Russian territory. Case. What did the authors of the new constitution of Russia think and dream about?

Let's wait for what Europe will say. But does it really matter

Meanwhile, the New Constitution of Russia has been submitted to the Council of Europe. The Venice Commission is authorized to give a legal assessment of the constitutional drafts of the member states of the Council of Europe. Despite the fact that her expert assessments are advisory in nature, it was the generally positive assessment by the Venice Commission of the Russian Constitution of 1993 that was one of the grounds for Russia's admission to the Council of Europe in 1996. When exactly the examination of all amendments will be carried out is unknown.

Rita Miller is a conspicuous public figure in St. Petersburg and a writer. A books about the democracy in St.Petersburg.