Normative Legal Agreements and Norm-Orienting Acts of Courts as New Sources of Russian Law: An Analysis Through the Prism of the Rule of Law
The article analyzes such new sources of law as normative legal agreements and norm-orienting acts of courts through the prism of the rule of law. The presence of other new sources of law, including legal doctrine, in the Russian Federation is denied. Normative legal agreements are agreements between the Russian Federation and the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the federal sphere, agreements on the transfer of powers or joint actions between various executive authorities, including multilevel ones, as well as between authorities and organizations, labor agreements. At present, the law has practically no clear rules regarding the content, conditions of conclusion and consequences of non-fulfillment of normative agreements. Therefore, it is proposed to use the normative legal act for legal regulation in public law, since this form implies clearer ways to ensure the rule of law. A tendency towards a reduction in contractual regulation in the Russian Federation is also observed. Norm-orienting acts of courts are acts of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, offering interpretations of constitutional norms, recognizing legal norms as contrary to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, acts of other higher courts generalizing the practice, decisions of higher and other courts that recognize regulatory acts invalid due to their contradiction to acts of great legal force. The manifestation of the rule of law in relation to norm-orienting acts of the courts is specific: the court in such cases actually intervenes in the prerogative of the lawmaker. However, it is proposed to consider that this does not lead to the leveling of the rule of law, but, on the contrary, increases its importance, since the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation thereby protects the constitutionalism of the content of laws, courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration courts, when recognizing normative acts as invalid, contribute to the strengthening of the rule of law in the country, and generalizations of the practice of higher courts make it possible to uniformly understand and apply the norms of law contained in the law. Particular attention is paid to the differences in the legal positions of the courts and the norms of laws. In addition to the negative component, it is proposed to perceive a positive component in this fact: the ability of such discrepancies to influence the search for optimal legal regulation through the prism of interaction between various branches of government. At the same time, the need is identified for a more detailed development of the doctrine of "self-restraint" of the courts when they intervene in the legislative sphere.