A Comparative Legal Study of the Constitutional (Statutory) Justice in the Subjects of the Russian Federation and the länder Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
In most federations of the world, constitutional justice is administered at both the federal and regional levels. Constitutional justice in the constituent entities of a federation contributes to strengthening of constitutional legality, the protection of human rights and freedoms, as well as the formation of a common legal space. Reference to the experience of the functioning of constitutional control bodies in other federal states allows analyzing the problems existing in the bodies of constitutional (statutory) control in the subjects of the Russian Federation. In the presented article, the existing legal bases of the organization and activity of constitutional (statutory) courts of subjects of the Russian Federation are investigated. The provisions of the Russian Federal law on the constitutional (statutory) court of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, its dispositivity, basic powers and the procedure for financing are specified. The author analyzes the reasons of absence of constitutional justice bodies in the majority of subjects of the Russian Federation and puts forward a number of proposals to eliminate these reasons, the use of experience of foreign countries, in particular, the Federal Republic of Germany. The author further touches upon the peculiarities of formation of the land constitutional courts of the Federal länder Berlin and Schleswig-Holstein. The relevance of coverage of the status of constitutional justice in these Federal länder is expressed in the fact that these courts were established in Germany in 1990s-2000s, much later than similar courts in other Federal länder. In the same years, the first courts of constitutional justice appeared in the regions of the Russian Federation. The normative and empirical basis of the research is the Constitution of the Russian Federation, Federal constitutional laws, Federal laws, decisions of the constitutional Court of the Russian Federation; the Constitution and charters of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, laws of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the Basic law of the FRG, the constitutions of the länder of Germany, laws on constitutional courts of the States of Germany.