Local Self-Government in Legal Positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and its Judges in the Context of Constitutional Reform 2020

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