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Abstract. The 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation laid down new trends in the development of local self-government. The Constitutional Court plays an important role in protecting the constitutional right to exercise local self-government, in the formation and transformation of the Russian model of local self-government. The article discusses some of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, which were based on the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation until the 2020 amendments. It is shown that the decisions in many cases that were considered by the Constitutional Court and touched upon various problems of local self-government used discussion among judges, which is reflected in a number of opinions and dissenting opinions. In the Opinion of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of March 16, 2020 No. 1-Z, the Constitutional Court concluded that the amendments to the Constitution are consistent with chapters 1, 2 and 9 of the Constitution. However, the article  shows that the amendments to the Constitution continue the tendency to centralize not only the state, but the entire system of public authority in Russia. A number of amendments to the Constitution emasculate many of the legal positions previously formulated by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. Accordingly, the constitutional foundations of the Russian model of local self-government will undergo significant changes. So far, one can only predict how this will affect the change in the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.

Keywords: Constitution of the Russian Federation; Law on Amendments to the Constitution; local self-government; legal positions of the Constitutional Court; dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court; territorial settlement principle; formation of local self-government bodies.

Abstract. This article is devoted to close such gap in law. The consequences of violation of paragraph 14 of the Regulations on awarding scientific degrees and (or) submission of false information about publications is deprivation of right to defend a dissertation repeatedly (also if such dissertation has been changed). However, we have no differentiation criteria (is this a new dissertation or the same dissertation, which cannot proposed to be used) by scientific journals to find duplicate-publication (including analysis of manuscript conditions on scientific journals, websites, practice of retraction of scientific articles, expertise presented by Dissernet). The author proposes to use such differentiation criteria: 1) proportion of reproduction of previous dissertation; 2) proportion of original text in the part of dissertation, which is not same as previous dissertation; 3) which parts are the same in previous dissertation, if some elements are the same, specifically in: conclusion; defended positions; description of scientific novelty; abstract of dissertation; articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals where main scientific results of dissertation are published; 4) comparison of the structure of dissertations; 5) new empirical basis; 6) scientific novelty of dissertation in comparison with previous dissertation. The author notes that is possible to use other criteria. It is proposed to utilize different criteria depending on the stage of process of defense of dissertation, and the competence of a person who is authorized to decide if it is a new dissertation. Also, as a result of the analysis of possible variant of criteria normative regulation, the author proposes variant of amendments of legal acts, which regulate dissertation requirements and process of defense of dissertation.

Keywords: new dissertation; same dissertation; differentiation criteria; deprivation of right to defend a dissertation repeatedly; self-plagiarism.