Continuity in the Constitutional Law of Russia: Connection with the Previous Doctrine and Practice

The interaction of states in the international legal sphere often leads to the reception and subsequent universalization of constitutional norms. The Russian Federation also had this experience. However, there is something characteristic of a particular country that does not lend itself to change-constitutional originality. According to the author, continuity is one of its characteristic parameters. Without legal fixation, continuity can be considered as the transfer by law of the state of the provisions and experience of past years to modern state law. The aim of this study is to specify and illustrate specific parameters that turned out to be the "connecting link" between state law of the past and the present. The theoretical basis of the study is works by pre-revolutionary (P.G. Vinogradov, N.I. Lazarevsky, N.M. Korkunov, G.F. Shershenevich, and others), Soviet (V.K. Babaev, S.L. Zivs, Neno Nenowski, and others), and modern (S.V. Lipen, F.F. Litvinovich V.A. Rybakov, Yu.I. Skuratov, and others) authors. The normative basis of the research is the previously existing constitutions of the USSR and the RSFSR, and the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation. The main research methods are formal logical, which allowed to clarify and generalize the views of scholars on the issue of continuity, historical legal and formal legal, which contributed to the justification of the position on the existence of continuity in constitutional law at various periods of the formation and development of the domestic state. In the course of the study, it was revealed that the continuity gap in the domestic doctrine was mentioned twice: (1) as something new, different from pre-revolutionary, in the context of building a system of socialist law; (2) as modern, not like Marxist. But, in spite of the indicated gaps, continuity is observed. As a result of the study, the author came to the conclusion that it seems possible to detect the brightest directions of the continuity process in constitutional law: (1) connection with the previous doctrine and practice (constitutional restoration); (2) forms used to consolidate constitutional legal norms. The specified directions turned out to be similar in pre-revolutionary and Soviet, pre-revolutionary and modern, Soviet and modern periods. Moreover, it has been revealed that continuity as a process contributes to the preservation of features inherent in each particular state, and hence its constitutional originality.

Keywords

Authors

References