ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and legal relationships as they are conceived therein. One of the major questions connected with the creation of a pravovoe gosudarstvo is whether a citizen or an organization may sue agencies possessing executive power. Under the 1988 and 1989 constitutional amendments parliament had been given considerable power and the Politburo had lost its grip on policy-making. The president also had judicial powers, derived from his role as defender of the observance of the rights and freedoms of the Soviet citizens under the USSR Constitution and laws. The cabinet was no longer described as the highest agency of state power and state administration, but as the highest executive and administrative agency of the USSR, subordinate to the president. Traditionally, relations between higher and lower agencies were dominated by the principle of democratic centralism, enshrined in the statute of the Communist Party and also in the 1977 Constitution.
