ABSTRACT
In this chapter we highlight key features of the recent law on local selfgovernment (LSG)1 which was ratified on 3 October 2003 under the title ‘On the General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation’2 (hereafter, 2003 Federal Law).3 Our account and analysis will be guided particularly by three objectives. First, one of the focal interests of the Article is to place the 2003 Federal Law in a developmental perspective, that is, to explore whether and in which crucial aspects it links up with earlier stages of legislation on LSG and where it deviates from them. Such a historical and developmental approach will allow us to gauge in which direction Russia’s legislative and institutional system of LSG is moving – towards greater or lesser degrees of decentralization or (re-)centralization. Thus, reference will be made to: the law, ‘On Local Self-Government in the RSFSR’ adopted on 6 July 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation (hereafter, 1991 Federal Law); the Federal Constitution enacted on 12 December 1993; the Federal law, ‘On the General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government’ enacted on 28 August 1995 (hereafter, 1995 Federal Law).4 References shall also be made to the law ‘On the Principles of Local Self-Government and Local Economy’5 which was adopted by the USSR Supreme Soviet on 5 April 1990 (hereafter, 1990 Law). Second, the chapter will be structured by sequentially singling out and
discussing crucial aspects of the regulation and institutionalization of LSG in order to identify the developmental trajectory within each sequence. Third, where it appears appropriate the chapter will put the legislative development, particularly the 2003 Federal Law, in an internationally comparative perspective, including references to the European Charter of Local Self-Government which was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1985. It was ratified by the Russian Parliament (State Duma) on April 19986 and came into force in Russia on 1 September 1998.7
The history of legislation on LSG in the ‘late-perestroika’ Soviet Union began with the 1990 Law, which in an unprecedented move broke with the Soviet doctrine of the ‘unity of the State’ by recognizing and introducing the notions of LSG and ‘questions of local significance’ as a self-standing level and responsibility. It was obviously conceived as a federal ‘frame’ law, which was intended to leave legislative scope to member republics and regions.8
The 1991 Federal Law which was passed by the Russian Parliament (RSFSR Supreme Soviet) on 6 July 1991 was employed by President Yeltsin as a tool of ‘nation-building’ in that, on the one hand, it was meant to supersede the (rival) USSR Federal legislation and, on the other, to put the establishment of LSG on a common legal footing throughout the RSFSR.9
