ABSTRACT
The re-emergence of an independent Russia out of the Soviet shell ranks as one of the great state-building endeavours of the twentieth century. A constitution can be adopted in a matter of months, but constitutionalism—the subordination of power to law—takes decades and even then is far from irreversible. The Constitutional Assembly was reorganised to include a ‘public chamber’ and a ‘state chamber’ on 11 October to complete work on the constitution. The constitutional committee drew on the Constitutional Assembly’s synthesis but also borrowed directly from earlier presidential and parliamentary drafts. The Russian constitution of 1993 is liberal in its overall conception but some of its democratic procedures are flawed. The constitution is a liberal document, meeting world standards in its provisions for human and civil rights and exceeds them in terms of the social rights granted to Russian citizens.
