THE PLACE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE TYPOLOGY OF THE FEDERAL STATES OF THE VENICE COMMISSION 

Goshulyak Vitaliy Vladimirovich, Doctor of juridical sciences, doctor of historical sciences, professor, dean of the Faculty of Law, Penza State University (40 Krasnaya street, Penza, Russia), E-mail: vvgoshulyak@rambler.ru  

342.365 

10.21685/2072-3016-2019-3-1 

Background. In modern legal science, when studying various institutions of constitutional law, the authoritative opinions of the international expert community, represented by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), in which the Russian Federation is among the other sixty States, have been actively attracted. The author aims to examine the constitutional institution of Russian federalism through the prism of the conclusions of the Venice Commission. This is one of the first works dealing with this problem in a complex way.
Materials and methods. Implementation of research tasks was achieved on the basis of analysis of reports and conclusions of the Venice Commission on federalism. The conclusions of the Venice Commission on constitutional legislation of the Russian Federation are subject to separate consideration. Methodological potential includes the following research methods: comparative legal, logical, institutional, formal legal, historical.
Results. The article studies the typology of Federal States developed by the Venice Commission and defines the place of the Russian Federation as a Federal state in this typology.
Summary. In the typology of the Venice Commission, the Russian Federation should be referred to constitutional federations formed on the basis of a combination of territorial and national principles. According to the constitutional and legal status of the subjects of the Federation, the Russian Federation refers to symmetrical federations with a certain degree of asymmetry, since the six types of subjects of the Federation established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, with their formal equality, have features of their constitutional and legal status. In terms of the division of powers between Federal and regional bodies of state power, the Russian Federation is a centralized Federation. This place of the Russian Federation among the Federal States of the world fits perfectly into the General theory of federalism and does not violate its legal nature. 

The Venice Commission, federalism, the typology of the Federal States 

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