Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Esta publicación cientíca en formato digital es continuidad de la revista impresa
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ppi 201502ZU4645
Vol.39 N° 69
Julio
Diciembre
2021
Recibo el 14/02/2021 Aceptado el 06/05/2021
ISSN 0798- 1406 ~ De pó si to le gal pp 198502ZU132
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas
La re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas, es una pu bli ca ción aus pi cia da por el Ins ti tu to
de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co “Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che” (IEPDP) de la Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas de la Uni ver si dad del Zu lia.
En tre sus ob je ti vos fi gu ran: con tri buir con el pro gre so cien tí fi co de las Cien cias
Hu ma nas y So cia les, a tra vés de la di vul ga ción de los re sul ta dos lo gra dos por sus in ves-
ti ga do res; es ti mu lar la in ves ti ga ción en es tas áreas del sa ber; y pro pi ciar la pre sen ta-
ción, dis cu sión y con fron ta ción de las ideas y avan ces cien tí fi cos con com pro mi so so cial.
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas apa re ce dos ve ces al año y pu bli ca tra ba jos ori gi na les con
avan ces o re sul ta dos de in ves ti ga ción en las áreas de Cien cia Po lí ti ca y De re cho Pú bli-
co, los cua les son so me ti dos a la con si de ra ción de ár bi tros ca li fi ca dos.
ESTA PU BLI CA CIÓN APA RE CE RE SE ÑA DA, EN TRE OTROS ÍN DI CES, EN
:
Re vicyhLUZ, In ter na tio nal Po li ti cal Scien ce Abs tracts, Re vis ta In ter ame ri ca na de
Bi blio gra fía, en el Cen tro La ti no ame ri ca no para el De sa rrol lo (CLAD), en Bi blio-
gra fía So cio Eco nó mi ca de Ve ne zue la de RE DIN SE, In ter na tio nal Bi blio graphy of
Po li ti cal Scien ce, Re vencyt, His pa nic Ame ri can Pe rio di cals In dex/HAPI), Ul ri ch’s
Pe rio di cals Di rec tory, EBS CO. Se en cuen tra acre di ta da al Re gis tro de Pu bli ca cio-
nes Cien tí fi cas y Tec no ló gi cas Ve ne zo la nas del FO NA CIT, La tin dex.
Di rec to ra
L
OIRALITH
M. C
HIRINOS
P
ORTILLO
Co mi té Edi tor
Eduviges Morales Villalobos
Fabiola Tavares Duarte
Ma ría Eu ge nia Soto Hernández
Nila Leal González
Carmen Pérez Baralt
Co mi té Ase sor
Pedro Bracho Grand
J. M. Del ga do Ocan do
José Ce rra da
Ri car do Com bel las
An gel Lom bar di
Die ter Nohlen
Al fre do Ra mos Ji mé nez
Go ran Ther born
Frie drich Welsch
Asis ten tes Ad mi nis tra ti vos
Joan López Urdaneta y Nil da Ma rín
Re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas. Av. Gua ji ra. Uni ver si dad del Zu lia. Nú cleo Hu ma nís ti co. Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas. Ins ti tu to de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co
“Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che”. Ma ra cai bo, Ve ne zue la. E- mail: cues tio nes po li ti cas@gmail.
com ~ loi chi ri nos por til lo@gmail.com. Te le fax: 58- 0261- 4127018.
Vol. 39, Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre) 2021, 326-334
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
The Constitutional Court in the
System of Public Authorities:
A Doctrinal Approach
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.3969.19
Elena V. Vinogradova *
Ekaterina S. Ganicheva **
Kasa Ilda ***
Badma V. Sangadzhiev ****
Natella A. Sinyaeva *****
Abstract
The article examines the place and role of the Constitutional
Court in the system of public powers in the doctrinal understanding
of the concept of human rights and constitutionalism. The
Constitution of the Russian Federation establishes the basic
constitutional and legal principles that are fundamental to
substantive and procedural law. Judicial constitutional review, as the
experience of European countries shows, is the most eective in protecting
the Constitution. The principles of law applied to the doctrinal assessment
of the place and role of the Constitutional Court in the system of public
powers constitute a rather dynamic legal concept. The methodology is based
on the legal system, public relations, and the political-state course, which,
like all fundamental ideas, change, aect legal awareness and establish
new requirements for legal regulation and the formation of an appropriate
mechanism. The article concludes that the most important condition for
the implementation of the prerogatives of the judiciary to administer justice
in the consideration and resolution of specic cases, with emphasis on the
study and evaluation of evidence. It is the evidence that serves as the basis
of information for the court’s ndings in the case.
* Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://
orcid.org/0000-0002-3568-9042. Email: evsfrf@gmail.com
** Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation,
Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3597-9928. Email: ekaterina.ganitcheva@
gmail.com
*** Рeoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://
orcid.org/0000-0003-3805-7371. Email: kasa_i@pfur.ru
**** Рeoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://
orcid.org/0000-0001-8317-0117. Email: sangadzhiev-bv@rudn.ru
***** PhD of law, Associate professor, Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian
Federation, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4217-8467. Email: Natella.
Sinyaeva@gmail.com
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 69 (Julio - Diciembre 2021): 326-334
Keywords: constitutional court; public authorities; procedural law;
doctrinal approach; Russia federation.
El Tribunal Constitucional en el Sistema de Poderes
Públicos: Un enfoque doctrinal
Resumen
El artículo examina el lugar y el papel del Tribunal Constitucional en el
sistema de poderes públicos en la comprensión doctrinal del concepto de
derechos humanos y constitucionalismo. La Constitución de la Federación
de Rusia establece los principios constitucionales y legales básicos que
son fundamentales para el derecho sustantivo y procesal. La revisión
constitucional judicial, como muestra la experiencia de los países europeos,
es la más ecaz en la protección de la Constitución. Los principios de
derecho aplicados a la valoración doctrinal del lugar y papel del Tribunal
Constitucional en el sistema de poderes públicos constituyen un concepto
jurídico bastante dinámico. La metodología se basa en el ordenamiento
jurídico, las relaciones públicas y el rumbo político-estatal, que, como todas
las ideas fundamentales, cambian, afectan la conciencia jurídica y establecen
nuevos requisitos para la regulación legal y la formación de un mecanismo
adecuado. El artículo concluye que la condición más importante para la
implementación de las prerrogativas del poder judicial para administrar
justicia en la consideración y resolución de casos especícos, con énfasis en
el estudio y valoración de las pruebas. Es la evidencia que sirve como base
de información para las conclusiones del tribunal en el caso.
Palabras clave: tribunal constitucional; autoridades públicas; derecho
procesal; enfoque doctrinal; federación rusa.
Introduction
The Constitution is the basic law (system of laws) of the state, which
has the highest legal force. It establishes the foundations of social order
and government, the relationship between the state and the individual, the
rights and freedoms of man and citizen, and the fundamental principles of
organization and activity of state authorities (Vitruk, 2013). The supreme
legal force of the constitution means that all other laws, other acts, and
law enforcement practices must comply with it, otherwise, they are
invalid. If the norms of the constitution are not observed, then the basic
law will remain a dead letter, its norms will only be declarative. To avoid
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Elena V. Vinogradova, Ekaterina S. Ganicheva, Kasa Ilda, Badma V. Sangadzhiev y Natella A.
Sinyaeva
The Constitutional Court in the System of Public Authorities: A Doctrinal Approach
a contradiction between the legal and actual constitution, a special control
over its observance is necessary, which is constitutional control (Kozlova
and Kutan, 2012).
The most important condition for the implementation of the prerogatives
of the judiciary to administer justice in the consideration and resolution of
specic cases is the study and assessment of the evidence. It is the evidence
that serves as the information basis for the court’s conclusions in the case.
However, one of the means of obtaining evidence is expertise, which is
generally understood as the study of any issues by experts, the solution of
which requires special knowledge. Constitutional court proceedings are
no exception in this sense, which, according to part 2 of Article 118 of the
Constitution of the Russian Federation, is one of the forms of exercising
judicial power. Since the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation
considers and resolves only questions of law, the knowledge that may
potentially be required for the resolution of cases referred to its competence
is primarily legal.
1. Methods
At present, there are ongoing discussions about the legal nature of
the Constitutional Court, the future of constitutional legal proceedings,
procedural legislation, and procedural law. Many modern Russian
scholars are engaged in the theory of procedural law and the theory of
constitutional proceedings: A. Pavlushina, O.E. Soldatova, V.N. Balandin,
and others. Moreover, this legal category is interdisciplinary. However, it
is treated ambiguously in the theory of state and law and is not recognized
by all scholars. Each branch of substantive law must have its procedural
continuation. Substantive and procedural law are legal communities in the
system of law, despite all the dierences that have a close relationship with
each other. For example, S.S. Alekseev (1994), V.N. Balandin, A.V. Vasilev
(2008), V.M. Gorshenev (1985), etc. wrote about the place and role of
constitutionalism in the development of the state.
The doctrine of a normative legal act as a source of law is a kind of legal
doctrine. It allows formulating the main legal concepts and categories,
as well as focusing on the implementation of research tasks aimed at the
theoretical and legal justication of the features of a normative legal act. The
greatest attention in the modern theory of law and the theory of branches
of law is paid to the relationship between the source and the form of law.
Legal theorists and scholars in the eld of constitutional law pay attention
to the multiplicity of the concept of the source of constitutional law. The
Constitution of the Russian Federation establishes the basic constitutional
and legal principles that are fundamental for both substantive and procedural
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law. The principle as the initial idea, the provision, should be uniform in
its content for both substantive and procedural law. Consequently, the
principle enshrined in the Constitution should be transferred to other legal
acts without modication and have a uniform interpretation to exclude
discrepancies. Principles are a dynamic legal phenomenon. Their formation
takes quite a long time, they depend on the specic state-political situation,
the requirements that establish the existing social relations and legal
practice. The principles may not be clearly expressed in the legislation and
may be found in various parts of it. Optimally, they should be enshrined in
the constitution. The principles may change according to the requirements
of the time, changes in the legal system, and legislation.
2. Results
Constitutions and charters of the subjects of the Russian Federation
as a source and form of the constitutional law of the Russian Federation
are based on the doctrine that reveals three main characteristics. The rst
main characteristic concerns the predetermination of the origin, objective
necessity, and conditionality of the constitutions and charters of the
subjects of the Russian Federation. It is this characteristic that reects
the qualities of the constitution, the charter of the subject of the Russian
Federation as a source of law. In this context, it is important to substantiate
the genesis of the origin, concept, and legal nature of the constitution, the
charter of the subject of the Russian Federation as a source of law. The legal
nature, in turn, is revealed through such key categories as the properties
and functions of constitutions and charters of the subjects of the Russian
Federation, reecting the unique purpose of this type of normative legal
acts (Ershov, 2018).
The second main characteristic reveals the features and place of
constitutions and charters of the subjects of the Russian Federation as a
form of law. In this context, it is important to determine the correlation of
constitutions and charters of the subjects of the Russian Federation with
other normative legal acts in a hierarchically organized legal system of the
Russian Federation and the subjects of the Russian Federation.
The third main characteristic is related to the identication of the form,
structure, and content of constitutions and charters of the subjects of the
Russian Federation, those qualities that distinguish this form of law from
other forms of law as legal regulators of constitutional, statutory public
relations.
The subjects of constitutional proceedings are special bodies and
persons participating in constitutional proceedings, possessing, by virtue
of the law, subjective procedural rights and duties and exercising them in
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Sinyaeva
The Constitutional Court in the System of Public Authorities: A Doctrinal Approach
the course of constitutional proceedings. The subject of constitutional legal
proceedings is a state body, an ocial, an individual, or a legal entity. Each
subject of constitutional legal proceedings has its procedural status, i.e. a
set of procedural powers dened by law (Salikov, 2014).
The ultimate goal of doctrinal understanding of the constitutions and
statutes of constituent entities of the Russian Federation is the denition
of the concept, legal nature, main content, i.e. the subject of constitutional,
statutory regulation, as well as identication of the patterns of the
emergence, functioning, and development of constitutions and charters of
the constituent entities of the Russian Federation as a source and form of
constitutional law in the context of the concepts of socio-political, state-
legal, and axiological conditionality and the implementation of the principle
of federalism and the tasks of regional development. Legal theorists say
that today the rule of law is not built in any country in the world, because
this process requires a huge period of stable and systematic building up of
relations between society and the state. In our opinion, Canada is the closest
country to the rule of law today, as it is a country where they managed to
create a legal system in which many subcultures of society are preserved to
the maximum extent, including language, traditions, style, and way of life,
as well as the quality of life itself.
3. Discussion
We will consider the legal process (related to the concept and
understanding of the legal nature of constitutional proceedings and the
legal status of the Constitutional Court) as a dynamic legal phenomenon,
a form of legal activity within the framework of both a jurisdictional
(judicial) process and a non-jurisdictional process that is not carried out
within the framework of a court hearing. There are other classications of
the legal process, but we will not disclose them in this article. Since we are
talking about the legal process as an activity in the aspect of explaining the
legal nature of the Constitutional Court, it means that this activity must
be organized in a certain way. The basis of this activity should be either
substantive or procedural rules of law, as well as the principles of law.
We are interested in the functional approach to the principles of law
concerning the legal nature of the Constitutional Court, their practical signicance
related to the regulation of public relations. For example, V.M. Gorshenev, when
dening the principles of procedural activity, writes that they serve as a kind of
reference marks, pointers, the observance of which ensures the normal and
uniform implementation of traditional and non-traditional legal processes. Since
we are talking about the legal process as a theoretical category that combines
various types of processes and has practical signicance, it is necessary to identify
the principles that will be basic for the legal process and will characterize it as a
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specic legal phenomenon. According to A.V. Yurkovskii (2013), the system of
representations about the general democratic, generally civilized political and
legal values of an organized society, as well as the emergence of this category in
Western civilization as a result of constitutional revolutions, should be attributed
to the constituent elements of the concept of constitutionalism.
Conclusion
A special feature of the Federal Constitutional Law No. 1-FCL of July
21, 1994 “On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation” is that it
combines both material and procedural regulation of the activities of the
Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. For this reason, as well as
due to the absence of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation
of instance relations with any other courts, the procedural part of the Law
on the Constitutional Court has a relatively small volume and a simpler
structure than the procedural codes. However, the issues of examination
in constitutional proceedings remain poorly studied in comparison with
similar problems of civil, criminal, and other types of proceedings (Luchin
and Doronina, 1999: 111). In particular, the Law on the Constitutional Court
of the Russian Federation regulates the issues of evidence and proof in
constitutional proceedings in an extremely fragmentary manner. Several
fundamental issues arising in connection with the examination are resolved
in the Law on the Constitutional Court in a completely dierent way than
in other laws regulating judicial activity. According to Article 52 of the
Law on the Constitutional Court, experts are participants in the process
– along with the parties, their representatives, witnesses, and interpreters
(Grishina, 2006).
The fundamental principle of the legal process is the principle of
legality – this principle speaks of the priority of the law and the norms of
law applicable to a particular case, expressed in the equality of all under
the law. Regardless of whether we are at the stage of the process – at the
stage of negotiations, the conclusion of a contract, pre-trial settlement of a
dispute, or directly in court, we are primarily guided by the current norms
of law in our activities.
The principle of objectivity says that a specic legal case should be
resolved based on the actual circumstances of the case, considering the rights
and obligations assumed by the parties (rights, obligations, distribution of
the burden of proof, presentation of evidence).
The principle of continuity – this principle says that as an activity, the
legal process must be continuous and necessarily lead to a specic result.
The principle of accessibility – this principle says that the parties to
a particular activity should be able to exercise their rights and apply to
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The Constitutional Court in the System of Public Authorities: A Doctrinal Approach
the court or state bodies to resolve any legal issue or choose alternative
methods.
Adversarial principle – this principle is mainly characteristic of the
judicial process, but it is often used in resolving a dispute or legal conict
in the framework of an alternative mediation procedure when the parties
can choose a mediator or choose a panel of arbitrators in the framework of
arbitration proceedings.
The principle of procedural and commercial economy tells us that
specic procedural actions should be carried out in a certain allotted period
and covered by certain material costs. The principle of objective truth – this
principle says that the truth is the main goal of the legal process, and its
objectivity is achieved by paying close attention to the actual circumstances
of the case, providing evidence of their correct legal assessment with
registration in the relevant normative legal act with references to specic
norms of law.
The doctrine of a normative legal act as a source of constitutional law
is based on the postulate of the dominant position of this source as a form
of law. Any state is characterized by a hierarchically structured system
of normative legal acts, the supreme position in which is occupied by the
constitution. A federal state is characterized by a constitutional system
consisting of a federal constitution and constitutions of the constituent
parts of the federation. Accordingly, the federal structure of modern Russia
determines the existence of two types of constitutional acts – the federal
constitution and constitutions and charters of the subjects of the Russian
Federation.
Recommendations
Constitutional law and constitutional-legal regulation have evolved, but
constitutional law has always regulated economic relations, although at
present such regulation is becoming “more detailed and branched”. This has
aected not only the content of modern constitutions but also the content
of constitutional law as a science, in particular, served as the basis for the
emergence and development in legal science of the concepts of “economic
constitution” and “constitutional economy”. The rst concept has a broader
application and involves considering quantitative indicators. The second
concept is widespread in Western European legal thought, including
in Russia, and is based on the analysis of qualitative indicators. These
concepts are not opposed to each other, they build scientic ideas “about
the existence of several general principles and norms of a constitutional
nature that regulate the foundations of economic relations”.
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The doctrine of normative legal acts that occupy a supreme position
in the legal system is aimed at identifying a certain set of characteristics
that reveal both common with other normative legal acts and their special
signicance. It seems that in the context of the doctrine of a normative legal
act as a source and form of constitutional law, the study of the fundamental
characteristics that reveal its features is of theoretical and scientic-
practical importance. The rst characteristic concerns the predestination
of the occurrence, the objective necessity, and conditionality of a normative
legal act. It is this characteristic that reects the quality of a normative
legal act as a source of law. In this context, it is important to substantiate
the genesis of the origin, the concept, and essence, the legal nature of a
normative legal act as a source and form of law. The legal nature, in turn,
is revealed through such key categories as the properties and functions of
a normative legal act. The second characteristic is aimed at revealing the
distinctive features and place of a normative legal act in the system of other
normative legal acts. In this sense, its characteristics as a form of law are
revealed.
The constitutional and legal regulation of the relations under
consideration is based on the balance of state, public, and personal interests
since the construction of the legislative system should be based on the
balance of interests of various subjects of the economic system of society.
It is necessary to establish constitutional principles that, despite a certain
binary nature, could be built into a logical system of economic relations.
The analysis of the constitutional regulation evolution in various countries,
including Russia, allows concluding that the constitutional regulation of
economic relations is becoming more and more detailed over time. Thus, if
attention was mainly paid to securing the right of property and guarantees
of its protection in the rst formal constitutions and to securing for the
legislative body the right of exclusive rights to the emission of money
and some other actions in the sphere of the economy, then later many
constitutions began to contain special chapters on economic system or even
more specic cases of manifestations of economic relations, for example,
the chapter on public nance (Andreeva, 2008).
Acknowledgements
This paper was supported by the RUDN University Strategic Academic
Leadership Program.
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The Constitutional Court in the System of Public Authorities: A Doctrinal Approach
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Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
en julio de 2021, por el Fondo Editorial Serbiluz,
Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo-Venezuela
Vol.39 Nº 69
