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Russia’s Non-Transformative Constitutional Founding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2019

Abstract

The founding of Russia’s 1993 Constitution undermined its transformative potential – The use of pre-existing Soviet legality during Russia’s 1993 founding period encouraged President Yeltsin to push through a constitution that would ensure presidential dominance over the legislative branch – This presidential centralism has hindered the realisation of the transformative potential of the other parts of the constitution – Any future turn to transformative constitutionalism in Russia will require weakening the power of the Russian presidency – Transformative constitutionalism depends as much on the actual process of constitutional foundation as the text of the constitution

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Articles
Copyright
© 2019 The Authors 

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Footnotes

*

Associate Professor, Melbourne Law School (Melbourne, Australia); email: william.partlett@unimelb.edu.au.

**

Professor of Constitutional Law & Head of the Constitutional Law Faculty, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia); email: mkrasnov@hse.ru.

References

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37 Freedom House has labelled the majority of post-Soviet republics, including Russia, as ‘not free’: R.W. Orttung, ‘Nations in Transit: Russia’, Freedom House (2008) ⟨freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2008/russia⟩, last visited 5 November 2019.

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63 In the final versions of the 1978 Russian Constitution we can find different formulations including ‘The Council of Ministers; The Council of ministers-Government; The Government of the Russian Federation’. This constitution is available online (including its frequent updates) at ⟨constitution.garant.ru/history/ussr-rsfsr/1978/red_1978/⟩ last visited 5 November 2019.

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66 Vestnik Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF [The Bulletin of the Russian Constitutional Court] No. 6 (1994).

67 Ibid.

68 In spring 1991 in Russia, 57% of the Russians voted for Yeltsin and radical reforms: see Baturin, Y., Epokha El’tsina: Ocherki politicheskoi istorii [The Yeltsin Epoch: Descriptions of Political History] (Vagrius 2001) p. 1 at p. 118Google Scholar.

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73 Ibid.

74 Postanovlenie Konstitusionnogo Suda RSFSR ‘Po Dely o proverke konstitutsionnosti Ykaza Prezidenta RSFSR ot 19 Dekabrya 1991 “Ob obrazovanii Ministerstva bezoposnosti i vnutrennikh del RSFSR”’ [Decision of the Russian Constitutional Court of the RSFSR ‘On the Constitutionality of the Presidential Degree from 19 December 1991 “About the Creation of a Ministry of Security and Internal Matters of the RSFSR”’, Sobranie Zakonodatel’stvo RF. № 6, (1992) p. 247.

75 Vedomosti CPD i SS RSFSR № 13 (1993) p. 466.

76 O. Rumyantsev, Ukaz. soch. [Collected works] (1996) p. 178.

77 Sobranie aktov Prezidenta RF i Pravitel’stvo RF [Collection of acts of the President and Government of the Russian Federation], № 39 (1993) p. 3597.

78 Sobranie aktov Prezidenta RF i Pravitel’stvo RF [Collection of acts of the President and Government of the Russian Federation] № 42 (1993) p. 3995.

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