Bleshchik Aleksandr

ABSTRACT

Introduction. Modern Russia is in the process of reforming the public authority system. This circumstance inevitably actualizes the issues of quality and efficiency of public authority. Its efficiency, no matter what approach to defining this concept is applied, is associated with the nature of communication between the elements of this system, as well as with the parameters of communication of this system with the outside world. It is convenient to consider the external and internal features of communicative interactions in the public authority system using specific examples, in particular, using the example of the preparation and adoption of basic laws, including the new law on the general principles of local self-government organization.

Materials and methods. The set research tasks are conveniently solved using special methodological approaches, the focus of which is on communicative issues. Particularly, this concerns the communicative concept of law, from the position of which constitutional law can be considered in the context of a dialogue between citizens, their associations and society as a whole with the state, as well as in the context of a dialogue between state bodies and local governments, including regarding the formation and functioning of the public authority system.

Results and conclusions. The preparation of the text of the draft of the new federal law on the local self-government organization has been accompanied by a number of discussions in both the professional and academic communities for several years. One of the most controversial decisions of the draft should be recognized as the transition to a single-level territorial organization of local self-government. This approach was particularly sharply criticized by the regional authorities of those subjects of the Russian Federation that have national or social and economic characteristics. Negative opinions on the draft law sent by the state authorities of such subjects of the Russian Federation were not taken into account in preparation for the second reading procedure. However, later, in order to prevent social tension and ensure political stability, inter-factional amendments were introduced to the draft law, providing for variability in the choice of a model of municipal-territorial structure in various subjects of the Russian Federation.

Discussion. The described situation demonstrates the greater effectiveness of political mechanisms in resolving constitutional contradictions than actual legal ones, which, in particular, include the right of legislative initiative, amendments to draft laws, conclusions based on the results of a legal examination of a draft law and other familiar parliamentary practices. This in turn updates the problem of aforementioned practices improving. At the same time, it should be recognized that the development of individual constitutional and municipal mechanisms should occur taking into account the peculiarities of the national political culture and the nature of communication taking place within the public authority system.

 

 

KEYWORDS

Legal communication, public authority system, local self-government, municipal-territorial structure, constitutional and legal dialogue, subsidiarity

Relevance of the issue. This article is devoted to the issue of the significance and role of legal expertise of municipal legal acts in the context of the implementation in Russia of the principle of unity of the system of public authority. The introduction of the provision on the unity of the system of public authority into the constitutional text and its development in the current federal legislation for several years of the constitutional reform never gave a clear idea of the concept. Understanding the practical consequences of the reform is difficult due to the lack of the whole new administrative and political practices that would change the nature of the relationship between the levels of public authority.
Research purpose and methods. Today, legal expertise of legal acts as part of the general activity of maintaining a register of municipal legal acts remains a basic way to ensure the unity of the legal space and one of the possible tools for implementing the single public authority concept. The practice of conducting legal expertise of municipal acts by the authorities of the RF entities has revealed a number of problems associated with the uncertainty of the nature of the legal expertise itself, lack of clearly established legal consequences of ignoring its results, with poor methodological and technical equipment of the expertise and, ultimately, with its low quality. In the article, formal legal, comparative, statistical and other research methods were used.
Results and proposals. According to the author, the solution to these problems may be associated with the formalization of expert activities, identification of negative consequences that occur if the local government would not eliminate legal defects revealed through legal expertise, and the scientific development of the methodological basis of legal expertise. The purpose of legal expertise, as practice, to ensure the unity of the system of public power, should not only be to check the formal compliance of legal acts of lower legal force with higher ones, but to assess the efficiency of authorities coordination, feasibility of their decisions, correlation of interests at all levels of public power with each other and with the citizens’ interests.