Administrative responsibility for violations of the election legislation in the context of the legal status of electoral commissions
The article deals with the problems of administrative responsibility for violations of the election legislation; the issue is studied in the context of the legal status of electoral commissions. The authors assess the administrative-tort and constitutional-legal provisions, mediating issues and the implementation of administrative responsibility for violations of the election legislation. Attention is drawn to the peculiarities of the legal status of electoral commissions and the functions of their activities. The content of certain issues related to the jurisdiction of election commissions in terms of the implementation of their administrative and tort powers is studied in the article; the analysis of their content is carried out, the problems of practical importance, including an assessment of the legal status of election commissions, are pointed out. When writing the article, the authors used the following methods when writing: system analysis, dialectical, logical, comparative-legal, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction. As a result of the study, the following results were obtained: - the inconsistency of election and administrative legislation and the practice of their enforcement are also expressed in bringing to justice by corpus delicti, which does neither involve the payment of a fairly significant fine, nor significantly affects the maintenance of law and order; - municipal election commissions as well as other election commissions that do not function outside the election campaigns may additionally need material technical and methodological support in fixing administrative offenses; - legal responsibility in the electoral process needs to be transformed according to the principles of the work of election commissions, expressed in the capacious category of “effective care” for the implementation of passive and active suffrage; - the measures of administrative responsibility, first of all, penalties addressed to candidates and electoral associations, cannot exceed the amount of funds spent on average for the election campaign at the lowest level, a spontaneous increase in the size of this sanction is not permissible and needs to be revised, taking into account the proposed indicators; - when updating the institution of responsibility in the electoral process, the principle of federalism should also be taken into account. In this regard, it seems possible to delegate to the legislative (representative) bodies of the subject the right to fix in the legislation on administrative offences the constituent elements of crimes used in the course of municipal elections.