Constitutional law of the Russian Federation. Institutions of direct democracy. General characteristics of electoral law (lecture notes)

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Constitutional law of the Russian Federation. Institutions of direct democracy. General characteristics of electoral law (lecture notes)

Lecture notes, cheat sheets

Directory / Lecture notes, cheat sheets

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Topic 13. Institutions of direct democracy

Democracy in the Russian Federation can be exercised in two main forms: direct and indirect. The first, so-called direct, immediate, democracy includes:

▪ direct elections;

▪ referendum;

▪ recall of a deputy of a representative body of power and an elected official (not provided for at the federal level);

▪ people's legislative (law-making) initiative (possible only at the regional and local levels);

▪ forms of direct implementation by the population of local self-government (meetings of citizens, meetings and conferences of citizens, public hearings, etc.), etc.

An indirect form of democracy (representative democracy) is associated with the exercise of power through elected representatives, state authorities and local governments (including individual ones).

The highest direct expression of the power of the people is the referendum and free elections. It must be borne in mind here that, firstly, a hierarchy of forms of direct democracy has been established, their division into higher and others, and secondly, there is no gradation within the higher forms of democracy: a referendum and free elections are equally the highest forms of exercising power by the people .

13.1. General characteristics of suffrage

Democratic elections have long become a ubiquitous phenomenon, a common practice for most states (the age of this institution, in essence, coincides with the age of parliamentarism). Elections are one of the most common phenomena of public life in general: governing bodies of legal entities, educational groups, religious communities, leaders of informal groups, territorial public self-government bodies (houses, street committees, etc.), etc. are elected. Therefore, it is clear that elections are considered as a constitutional and legal institution associated with the formation of various public authorities.

Elections are a form of direct expression of the will of citizens, carried out in accordance with federal and regional legislation, charters of municipalities in order to form state authorities, local governments or empower officials.

Classification of elections in Russia can be carried out according to the following criteria:

a) depending on the territory in which the elections are held:

▪ universal (all-Russian, national);

▪ regional;

▪ local (municipal);

b) depending on the formed body (election of an official):

▪ elections of collegial public authorities (parliamentary, elections of representative bodies of local self-government);

▪ elections of individual public authorities and officials (presidential, gubernatorial, elections of heads of administrations, justices of the peace, etc.);

c) depending on the method of expression of the will of voters:

▪ direct - when the attitude towards the candidate is expressed directly;

▪ indirect - when there is an intermediate link between voters and the candidate (for example, members of the Federation Council - representatives of the legislative bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are elected at meetings of these bodies; elections of chairmen of regional parliaments, as a rule, are carried out by deputies of the corresponding parliaments; elections of heads of municipalities are often carried out by deputies of representative local government bodies, etc.);

d) depending on the duration:

▪ next;

▪ extraordinary (in connection with the early termination of the powers of a government body or an elected official);

▪ repeated (in connection with the recognition of regular or early elections as invalid);

e) depending on the scale of the elections (number of mandates of the representative body to be replaced):

▪ full (when renewed, the entire composition of the representative body is elected);

▪ partial (additional) - carried out to replace part of the mandates (for example, if rotation of part of the composition of the representative body is provided, if as a result of the elections, deputy mandates remained unfilled, if a vacancy of a deputy mandate appears, etc.);

f) depending on the number of registered candidates:

▪ alternative;

▪ no alternative.

The concept of elections (in a broad sense, as a constitutional legal institution) is often identified with the concept of suffrage, which can be defined as an institution of constitutional law, a set of legal norms that regulate the process of electing candidates to representative bodies of power and elected positions.

In the institution of electoral law, groups of legal norms can be distinguished that regulate the following issues:

▪ basic principles of electoral law;

▪ requirements for voters and candidates (active and passive suffrage);

▪ status of election commissions and other subjects of the electoral process (political parties, electoral associations and blocs, observers, etc.);

▪ the procedure for the formation of electoral districts ("electoral geography", "electoral geometry");

▪ the procedure for conducting election campaigns and financing the election campaign;

▪ voting procedure;

▪ procedure for determining election results;

▪ procedure for appealing violations and challenging election results.

In the Russian Federation, electoral legislation is not codified: in Russia there is no electoral code (at the federal level), as in some other states or individual constituent entities of the Russian Federation (Bashkortostan, Altai Territory, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kostroma, Sverdlovsk regions, etc.), electoral law norms are contained in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and numerous federal, regional and municipal laws and other legal acts. At the same time, the fundamental provisions that are mandatory when holding elections at any level throughout Russia are contained in the Federal Law of June 12.06.2002, 67 No. XNUMX-FZ “On the Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation,” as amended. and additional At the same time, most of the electoral norms provided for by Russian legislation correspond to generally recognized, fairly unified provisions of the electoral law of foreign countries.

So, as the main principles for holding elections and a referendum, Russian legislation fixes:

▪ participation of Russian citizens in elections on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage (expression of will) by secret ballot;

▪ mandatory and periodicity of elections;

▪ free and voluntary participation in elections and referendums;

▪ preservation of voting rights when Russian citizens live outside the territory of Russia;

▪ transparency in the activities of election commissions and referendum commissions at all levels;

▪ independence of election commissions and referendum commissions, inadmissibility of interference in their activities by other public authorities, officials, organizations and citizens;

▪ inadmissibility (as a general rule) of participation in the electoral process of foreign states, organizations and citizens, as well as stateless persons.

All citizens of the Russian Federation, regardless of gender, race, nationality, language, origin, property and official status, place of residence, attitude to religion, beliefs, have an active electoral right (the right to elect to state authorities and local governments) and the right to vote in a referendum. belonging to public associations and other circumstances who have reached the age of 18 (on the day of voting) and reside in the territory of the electoral district.

The requirements for passive suffrage (the right to be elected to public authorities and local governments) are not so unified, they depend on the type (level) of the formed body (elected official), regional characteristics and other factors. But in any case, the minimum age of a candidate, established by law, is 21 years old on the day of voting in elections to the legislative (representative) body of state power of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation and to local governments and 30 years old - in the elections of the head of the region, and setting the maximum age of a candidate is not allowed .

Restrictions on passive suffrage may be associated with a ban on holding certain elective positions for more than two consecutive terms, the inability to hold other positions in the state or municipal service, engage in other paid activities, except for scientific, pedagogical and other creative activities (the principle of incompatibility), and other conditions. Traditionally, in Russia, citizens who have been declared incompetent by a court or are held in places of deprivation of liberty by a court verdict do not have the right to elect and be elected, participate in a referendum. In addition, citizens are deprived of their passive electoral right in respect of whom there is a court decision that has entered into force depriving them of the right to hold state and (or) municipal positions for a certain period (such a sanction is provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

To determine the results of elections in the Russian Federation, all major electoral systems are used: majoritarian, proportional and mixed. The essence of the majoritarian electoral system is that of several candidates, the candidate who receives the most votes in the elections wins. At the same time, two varieties of the majoritarian electoral system are used in Russia: the elections of some deputies of representative bodies of state power in many constituent entities of the Russian Federation are carried out according to the majoritarian electoral system of relative majority (to win, it is enough for a candidate to receive a simple majority of votes compared to other candidates), and the elections of the President of the Russian Federation, heads of many municipalities are carried out according to the majoritarian electoral system of an absolute majority - here a simple majority of votes is not enough to win the elections, you need to get at least 50% plus one vote (if none of the candidates gains an absolute majority in the first round of elections, then a second round is held, in which the two best candidates go).

When using a proportional electoral system, deputy mandates in a representative body are distributed depending on the number of votes cast by voters for a particular list of candidates (this system is not applicable to elections of officials). Obviously, the use of this electoral system in its pure form presupposes the presence in the state of a developed party system, strong and authoritative political parties.

The most common in the Russian Federation is a mixed electoral system. Thus, one half of the deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation are elected by the majoritarian electoral system of a relative majority, and the other half by the proportional electoral system (the presidential bill on the transition to the election of deputies of the State Duma exclusively by the proportional electoral system is currently being considered). A mixed electoral system should become predominant in the elections of representative bodies of state power of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation: in accordance with Federal Law No. 12.06.2002-FZ of June 67, 14, after July 2003, XNUMX, at least half of the deputy mandates in these bodies (or in one of the chambers, if the regional parliament is bicameral) should be replaced by a proportional electoral system (with the exception of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, on the territory of which regional branches of less than three political parties are registered).

Author: Nekrasov S.I.

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