Liberal and Democratic Trends in Russian Electoral Law
Introduction. The development of Russian electoral law is taking place in the struggle of two trends: liberal (bourgeois) and democratic (popular). The first is designed to ensure the power of elites, as a result of which the electoral right conflicts with the meaning of the constitutional right of citizens to elect and be elected. It manifests itself in the desire to reduce elections to the act of voting, the legislator’s evasion from the substantive filling of the basic principles of electoral law, the introduction of multiple restrictions on passive electoral law, which are hardly consistent with the essence of these principles, the conscious bureaucratization of the electoral process. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The liberal trend constrains the disclosure of the existing democratic potential of the constitutional right of a citizen to elect and be elected. The democratic trend is aimed at the implementation of democracy, filling the real content to the principle of free elections, which should take precedence over all other principles of electoral law. Apparently, the principle of free elections should be multifaceted in terms of content, assuming the free formation of the voter’s opinion, and the free expression of this opinion, i.e., a free voting procedure, and adequate determination of the will while drawing the election results. In the system of principles of electoral law, this principle should be put in the first place, paying attention to the relationship and interaction with other principles, especially with the principles of universal and equal suffrage. Results. Proposals are made to strengthen the democratic content of the electoral law. It is necessary either to remove the veil of secrecy from voter lists prepared before polling day (in many foreign countries, voter lists are posted at polling stations for public viewing), or to draw up such lists when voters turn out to vote, as is done at polling stations abroad. It seems that the grounds for refusing to register candidates and lists of candidates should be considered from the standpoint of the value of passive suffrage and free elections. Currently, the largest number of refusals in registration is due to the presence of improperly executed documents or the absence of any information. The priority of form over content prevails. It is necessary to consolidate the mandatory existence of the institution of self-nomination at all types and levels of elections, including elections under the proportional electoral system. It is advisable to establish the interdependence between the number of voters in the relevant elections and the number of signatures required for registration of voters as the main logical criterion for all candidates and lists of candidates. The work of the commissions and judicial practice on disputes on recognition of signatures as unreliable testify to excessively high levels of both formalism and subjectivity in the process of evaluation of voters’ signatures. The existing correlation between Federal and regional electoral legislation should be reviewed. Since the Federal legislator granted the subjects of the Federation the right to supplement the guarantees of electoral rights in comparison with the basic guarantees, to the extent that the own legal regulation of the subjects of the Russian Federation in the field of electoral law should not go beyond the introduction of certain additional guarantees of electoral rights of citizens. Discussion and Conclusion. As a result of the struggle of different trends, the electoral right has acquired an illogical configuration. The Federal law on basic guarantees is not formally devoted to electoral rights, but to guarantees. It turns out a kind of inverted pyramid: it is based on electoral actions, the implementation of which is provided by fixed guarantees, and at the very top of the pyramid flaunts electoral rights, headed by the constitutional right to elect and be elected. I think it is necessary in legislation and law enforcement, judicial practice to turn this pyramid in such a way that positively recorded electoral rights become its Foundation. Guarantees and electoral actions should be adapted to the maintenance of these rights, and not vice versa, as at present, when guarantees determine the content of electoral rights.