ABSTRACT
This chapter provides as both a comparative textual analysis of Russia’s democratic foundation an historical accounting of the legal evolution of Russian democracy throughout the 1990s. In a stable federal relationship the overlapping section represents joint jurisdictional powers. Since federal law has to be supreme in a federal state, the center’s top square is necessarily larger than the regions’ bottom square. The legal structure created by the Federation Treaty with the republics was significantly different. The opening protocol salvo made the agenda clear: ‘the representatives of the organs of federal power for the Russian Federation and the krais and oblasts aspire to the equalization of legal status for all subjects of the Russian Federation’. The problem for the federal government was that the oblast/krai method for equalization was not to bring republican power lower but was instead to see their level raised higher. The adoption of a new Russian Constitution was an essential step in the evolution of Russian democracy.
