The organizational legal regime of election commissions in the Russian Federation: problems of legal status

The article deals with the elements of the organizational legal regime in the activities of election commissions in the Russian Federation. The author analyzes different viewpoints on the place of election commissions in the system of public authority bodies and criticizes a widely spread opinion about election commissions as bodies with a special status. Both the procedure for the creation of election commissions and their powers are important for the purpose of finding their place in the system of public authority bodies. The involvement of political parties and other social associations (which should reflect a social component in their nature) in the formation of election commissions is minimized by the right of corresponding bodies and officials to include any person from the suggested list into the commission. A legislative duty of the corresponding body to nominate any person suggested by the higher -level election commissions and political parties who have access to seat allocation in the corresponding representative body doesn't restrict this right. Actually, this provision is aimed to include into election commissions the representatives of those political parties which have been institutionalized into the system of representative and executive bodies. The fact that election commissions have the power of state or municipal bodies doesn't mean that they don't have authority. To support this we can refer to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation which stated that a legal status of a body is determined by its powers. The analysis of powers of the commissions and their members confirms the conclusion that election commissions have administrative functions in the field of election process. Paragraph 5, Article 28.3 of the Russian Federation Administrative Violations Code provides for the right of the voting members of election commissions to make up protocols on administrative violations upon the decision of a corresponding commission. Close connection of the institution of election commissions with such a sub-branch of administrative law as civil service can be illustrated by the fact that chairmen of the commissions which are state bodies are representatives for a hirer of government officials who sit in for them. The author concludes that creation of the system of permanent election commissions actualize both the problem of control of a higher level body over an inferior one and the use of administrative forms and methods in this sphere.

Keywords

Authors

References