Problem of Adopting Law “On Financing the Activities of Political Associations” in the Second Half of the 1990s
The purpose of this article is to consider, based on the complex use of various sources (regulations and bills, data from periodicals, parliamentary materials), the legislative initiative of the left opposition representatives in the Second Duma, associated with an attempt to adopt a law “On financing the activities of political associations”. The CPRF candidate lost the 1996 presidential election, not least due to the almost unlimited access of B.N. Yeltsin to the federal budget. Therefore, for the communists, this bill seemed to be an effective mechanism, which was designed to limit the “administrative potential” of pro-government political actors. Even though the proposed document remained an unrealized legislative initiative, it can be considered as the first attempt to solve the problem of fair financial support for political activities that have not received the attention of researchers. Historical, formal-legal, comparative, and systemic approaches were used as the main methods. Based on the study, it was possible to establish that, despite the undoubtedly progressive nature of the proposed bill, this document had no chance of becoming a federal law. The reason for this was the poor quality of the document, which looked more like a declaration of intent than a well-thought-out legal act. At the same time, it is impossible not to note the positive aspects of the legislative initiative: firstly, the very desire to streamline the financial activities of socio-political institutions was undeniably positive; secondly, an attempt to rely on foreign experience in a well-known issue seemed quite justified. But the most important thing was that the legislator tried to orient political associations in search of means of subsistence towards deep and comprehensive interaction with the institutions of civil society.