The Constitution
For the first time, the Constitution was discussed in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century.
Then, after the revolutions in America and Europe, advanced representatives of the noble aristocracy became adherents of constitutional rule.
The first constitutional project that appeared in Russia can be called the "Plan of state Transformation", developed in 1809 by Count Speransky.
This project consolidated the idea of a constitutional monarchy limited by parliament, and the abolition of serfdom.
According to Speransky, the Constitution is a law " defining the original rights and relations of all classes of state among themselves."
Later, the Decembrists also prepared their own draft constitutions.
The most radical for those times were Pestel's constitutional ideas.
His "Russian Truth" was a truly revolutionary project.
It not only destroyed serfdom, but also abolished autocracy, establishing a republic.
The program of constitutional reforms was also developed by the reformer tsar Alexander II, but his idea was not destined to be realized.
On March 1, 1881, the Tsar Liberator was killed by the Narodnaya Volya, who had already made several attempts on his life.
The Manifesto of August 6, 1905 was the first step towards a constitutional monarchy.
He established the State Duma and proclaimed the electoral rights of Russian citizens.
The Manifesto of October 17, 1905 proclaimed the inalienable civil rights: the inviolability of the individual, freedom of conscience, speech, and assembly.
The acts of 1905-1906 actually established the constitutional system in Russia.
But there was no smooth transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.
On October 25, 1917, the October Revolution took place.
From that moment until the summer of 1918, Russia has an unwritten constitution - a set of basic decrees of the Bolshevik state.
The decrees proclaimed the dictatorship of the proletariat and consolidated the sovereignty of the Soviets.
They liquidated private property, legalized the nationalization of landlords ' lands and large property.
In anticipation of the imminent victory of socialism throughout the world and the speedy establishment of communism, the Soviets adopted utopian decrees.
Thus, the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which later became one of the main parts of the first constitution of the RSFSR, expressed its determination to "pull humanity out of the clutches of financial capital and imperialism."
The historical task of the Soviet government was proclaimed "the merciless suppression of exploiters."
The first constitution in Russia was adopted on July 10, 1918 at the Fifth All Russian Congress of Soviets.
The Constitution consisted of six sections.
At the suggestion of Vladimir Lenin, the Declaration of the Working and Exploited People was included in it in full.
The first Russian Constitution documented the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The entire working population of the country, united in city and village councils, became the supreme bearer of power.
Equal rights of citizens were recognized regardless of race and nationality.
But they were very dependent on the class.
Non proletarian strata of the population - and this is the "exploiting class", the clergy, former employees of the police, gendarmerie and security guards - were deprived of voting rights.
Members of the House of Romanov, convicts and the mentally ill fell into the same category.
The Constitution of 1918 consolidated the federal structure of Russia and approved the construction of Soviet power.
The supreme authority was the All Russian Congress of Soviets, which was convened twice a year.
Between the congresses, the All Russian Central Executive Committee was the highest authority.
On January 31, 1924, the Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR adopted the first Constitution of the Soviet Union.
This Constitution consisted of two main parts: the Declaration on the Formation of the Soviet Union and the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR.
The declaration spoke exclusively about the political aspects of the formation of a new state.
In particular, there was such a formulation: "Since the formation of the Soviet republics, the states of the world have split into two camps: the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism.
There, in the camp of capitalism, there is national hostility and inequality, colonial slavery and chauvinism, national oppression and pogroms, imperialist atrocities and wars.
Here, in the camp of socialism, there is mutual trust and peace, national freedom and equality, peaceful cohabitation and fraternal cooperation of peoples."
The agreement contained 11 chapters.
They declared the sovereignty of the republics of the Union and their right to secede from the USSR.
An entire chapter was devoted to the work of the Joint Main Political Directorate (OGPU).
There was no section on human rights and freedoms.
For all the republics of the USSR, the Constitution of 1924 established a single citizenship - " look, envy, I am a citizen of the Soviet Union."
The Constitution of the USSR of 1936 was adopted by the Eighth Congress of Soviets on December 5.
It was popularly called " Stalinist "and" the constitution of victorious socialism " - the initial stage of communism.
According to Stalin, this constitution was the most democratic in the world.
Restrictions and inequality in voting rights were eliminated.
Universal suffrage and direct secret voting were introduced.
Unlike the previous Constitution of 1924, where there was not a word about human rights, freedom of conscience, speech and the press, meetings and demonstrations, personal inviolability and the secrecy of correspondence were guaranteed here.
All court sessions were supposed to be open.
Article 127: "The inviolability of the person is guaranteed to the citizens of the USSR.
No one may be arrested except by a court order or with the approval of a prosecutor."
This is the 36th year ... openly there was no dictatorship in the state.
The Stalinist constitution assigned land to collective farms for free and indefinite use, laid down the main principles of socialism: "He who does not work does not eat" and " From each according to his ability - to each according to his work."
From that moment on, December 5 became a public holiday.
It will remain so for 40 years until the adoption of the 1977 Constitution.
Although there were some basics, some ideas, based on which, for example, human rights activists could go to the square with a poster "At least observe this Constitution of yours!"
But there was no tool to comply with it.
It was a pure declaration, because none of its norms could directly act.
This required laws, by laws, instructions.
There were a lot of good wishes that simply could not be realized.
For example, the right of citizens to complain about administrative bodies to the courts was recorded.
For many years, this rule did not apply, because there was no law.
No one accepted any complaints on the basis of a direct rule of the Constitution.
No one, because there was no law.
The Brezhnev Constitution - 1977.
Adopted at the extraordinary seventh session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on October 7.
Since then, the day off is not the fifth of December - the Day of the Stalinist Constitution, but the seventh of October - the Day of the Brezhnev Constitution.
The preamble appears for the first time in this Soviet constitution.
It tells about the historical path of the Soviet Union for 60 years, gives a description of the "developed socialist society".
The 1977 Constitution called the Soviet Union a nation wide state, that is, "a state with developed socialism".
This, by the way, was the reason for the adoption of the new constitution - a new state has been built, a new constitution is needed.
Nevertheless, the main part of the Brezhnev constitution is taken from Stalin's.
Only Brezhnevskaya, in comparison with the previous three, more clearly asserts the leading role of the Communist Party.
According to the new constitution, the CPSU is the leading and guiding force of Soviet society, the core of its political system, state and public organizations.
It determines the general perspective of the development of society, the line of the internal and foreign policy of the USSR, directs the great creative activity of the Soviet people.
In 1985, the general Secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, announced a course for perestroika.
At the same time, the process of significantly changing the Constitution of the RSFSR of the 1978 model began.
Taking into account the amendments of 1989-1992, the Constitution was completely transformed.
The definitions "Soviet" and "socialist"were excluded from the official names of the country and republics within the Russian Federation.
The former autonomous republics and a number of autonomous districts and regions have achieved the status of republics within the Russian Federation.
The status of the territories, regions, and federal cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg has increased.
The state symbols of Russia have changed.
Now the Constitution confirmed the full international legal personality of Russia, the independence of its foreign and defense policy.
In the updated version, the constitution actually enshrined the rejection of the Communist Party's autocracy.
Political pluralism, plurality and equality of forms of ownership, including private ownership, were legalized.
The institutions of the President were established, and on October 30, 1991 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.
The idea of creating a Constitutional Court was probably in the air, because theory has long believed that the separation of powers can never be fully implemented if the judiciary does not balance the legislative power, does not check its acts for compliance with the Constitution.
Until 1991, this idea was never properly developed in Russia and the former USSR.
It was believed that the control over the content of laws was a function of parliament.
And that is why in the USSR in recent years, in 1989, a parliamentary body of constitutional supervision was created, which gave recommendations to the legislator that some acts adopted by him did not comply with the Constitution.
For the legislator, these acts, if it concerned the draft laws, the laws under consideration, did not have a mandatory meaning.
And the constitutional oversight committee was not a judicial body.
It was a slightly different organization, the organization of parliamentary control over the content of laws.
The generally accepted model requires that the judiciary does this.
This happened for the first time in Russia in the 91st year.
In April 1993, there was a well - known All - Russian referendum, which was held on the initiative of President Yeltsin, on trust in the president, government policy, on trust in the parliament the Supreme Council.
"Yes, yes, no, yes" - well known answers to questions.
After that, some kind of political impasse was formed.
The referendum was interpreted this way and that.
And then the idea of a Constitutional Conference arose.
By presidential decree, from the beginning of May 1993 to the beginning of July, the draft Constitution was basically already prepared.
It was developed on the basis of the Human Rights Covenants, starting with the UN in 1948.
Against the background of the development of a new Constitution of Russia, by the autumn of 1993, after Yeltsin's decree on the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet, a crisis of power broke out in Russia.
The Congress of People's Deputies, which has unlimited powers, could take into consideration any issues, including those that were under the direct jurisdiction of the President.
After the session of the constitutional Court on the night of September 21-22, Mr. Zorkin went to the White House to Khasbulatov and Rutsky, and solemnly read from the rostrum the decision of the constitutional court, which recognized the actions of the president as unconstitutional and sufficient for removal from office already under two articles of the constitution.
However, the "belodomovsky sitters" dismissed the president even before the decision of the constitutional court was made and immediately appointed an acting (then he began to write himself simply as "president"), Rutsky.
And the decision of the constitutional court was reproduced in thousands of copies, distributed in the crowd at the White House and became the legal basis for the entire subsequent action, which ended with the tragedy on October 3 and 4.
Therefore, the guilt or the share of the participation of the constitutional court in this whole story is extremely large.
The night session of September 1993 was difficult and tragic.
This was probably facilitated by the unnecessary power of the court at that time to choose issues for its own consideration and to take the initiative.
The moment was very politically acute, and the court did not need to speak on this particular political moment, but at the initiative of the then chairman, they gathered immediately after the presidential decree on constitutional reform was published, and they argued for a very long and fiercely.
The majority of votes were passed with the conclusion that this decree does not comply with the Constitution.
But I must say that it remained in its only operative part, because then we were unable, at least by the majority of the court, to formulate the motivation for this decision.
This has remained in history.
Then almost all the judges participated in the constitutional meeting on the development of the new Constitution of 1993 and the new law on the Constitutional Court, which incorporated the previous practice for two years of our activity.
After the events of October 1993, it became clear to everyone that Russia needs a new constitution.
On December 12, 1993, the current Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted by a national referendum.
On September 19, 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree declaring December 12 a state holiday.
The current Constitution is the fifth in the history of Russia, but the first adopted by popular vote.
The first of the nine chapters is the chapter on the foundations of the constitutional system.
The highest value according to the Constitution of the model of the 93rd year is a person, his rights and freedoms, their inviolability and inalienable nature.
The basic law enshrines democracy, the separation of powers, the secular social nature of the State, and the rule of law.
The Constitution guarantees equal rights of all subjects of the federation and guarantees the rights of all nations.
The President of Russia is the guarantor of the Constitution.
It states that he is elected by popular vote for four years, no more than two consecutive terms.
However, there are people in Russia who are sure that these norms are a little outdated.
How to amend the Constitution is stipulated in its ninth chapter.
Such proposals may be made by the President, the Federal Assembly, the Government and the legislative bodies of the constituent entities of the Federation.
We know from school that the Constitution is the Basic Law of the state, that it has the highest legal force.
And, probably, it makes sense to have a public holiday in honor of this important document.
At least in order to emphasize its significance, the significance of legal acts for our society.
Now, no matter what case the court considers, the rights of citizens are always considered.
Any citizen can apply to the Constitutional Court, he has a fantastic right - he is equal to the legislator.
He can appeal against the law adopted by the highest federal authority: The State Duma, the Federal Assembly, but in the event that this law was applied in his specific case, if this law violated his rights, if there are doubts that this law contradicts the Constitution.
There are a huge number of cases that relate to issues of judicial protection of citizens, the issue of equality of the parties in the process, issues of applying various kinds of repressive influence on citizens, etc.
There are a lot of questions about tax legislation, property rights or freedom of entrepreneurial activity, the problem of registration, when a citizen was attached to a certain place, and most of his rights depended on this place.
It would be necessary for all Russian citizens to be infected with the idea of constitutional patriotism - Russia has a good democratic Constitution.
Previously, the state granted rights to citizens, and the new Constitution proclaims the priority of human rights and freedoms, their primacy, and only then the state.
And this is the essence of the state - to recognize these rights and protect and ensure them.
First, man appeared on earth, and then the state.
The Constitution is a rather capacious normative legal act, constituent, of the highest legal force, but capacious.
And if we imagine that citizens and society will live only according to the Constitution, without having a system of legislation regulating and controlling the same rights and freedoms of man and citizen, the organization of power, the economic foundations of life, the political structure, this is impossible.
Therefore, any state has a system of laws, from 10 thousand names of laws..., but in 2003 there were 16 thousand appeals to the Constitutional Court, of which 98 percent were from citizens.
For example, the Constitutional Court explained that registration is of a notifying nature, that it is not mandatory, that citizens are not required to register theoretically.
People understand that now there is no party committee, which remains in any case, so to speak, the last thing is to get a court decision in their hands.
This is a revolution in the history of Russia, I can tell you - peaceful, quiet, not violent.
No matter how one treats the privatization process, collateral auctions and other things that are heard, the most colossal changes have occurred in relation to property.
Today, the number of owners is measured in millions, they protect their rights on the basis of this Constitution in various instances, and first of all in the judicial system.
Fantastic changes have taken place in the political system.
For the first time, we have a structure that we call the parliament.
No matter how we feel, this is a mirror, it reflects us, but we have a bicameral parliament, we have a "factory for the production of laws".
How it works is another question.
But those 1.5 thousand federal laws that have been adopted over 10 years with amendments, amendments, and so on, are a colossal breakthrough forward, a colossal one.
There is a development of the system of judicial protection, judicial power.
She is getting back on her feet after all.
The position of a judge is becoming more and more respected.
But the most important thing is that all these and many other transformations took place thanks to the Constitution in peaceful conditions (I am putting Chechnya out of brackets now, although there is a decision of the Constitutional Court on this issue), the Constitution ensured this.
Moreover, I can say that this is the only Constitution on Russian soil that has not been substantially amended or supplemented in 10 years, not a single comma has been changed.
Only the subjects of the Federation called themselves differently there - that's all the amendments.
And this is very good.
We have a guarantor of the Constitution - this is the President.
We have the main guardian of the Constitution - the Constitutional Court and all other courts.
And the main subjects who should know this Constitution, demand its implementation, influence the entire public power, the entire bureaucracy, if you want , are the people, these are the voters.
Thanks to this Constitution, an increasingly large part of our population is becoming voters in the true, not formal sense of the word, who make an informed choice, determining their fate.
It is high time and this is the business of the executive power, first of all, the presidential structures to introduce a course in our general school, mandatory teaching of the course of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, without fail.
On the eve of the 10th anniversary, you can publish the Constitution (with comments, with decisions of the Constitutional Court, with interpretations) in such a circulation that you can make a gift to every Russian family - free of charge by mail.
