?
Переход России к конституционной диктатуре: размышления о значении реформы 2020 года
The current Russian constitutional reform provoked an intensive debate on
the nature, legal substance and consequences of the whole bulk of constitutional
amendments introduced in the year 2020. From the one hand, the
initiators of reform were keen on affirmation of a proven formal and even
substantial continuity of amendments with the text of the Basic Law of
1993. From the other hand, their opponents demonstrated the apparent
transformation and distortion of many important constitutional provisions
regarding some key constitutional principles – law-based state, federalism
and local self-government, parliamentary rule, bicameralism, separation of
powers, independent justice and constitutional limitations of presidential
terms in power. The author thinks that these two contested opinions could
find junction in a framework of a new theoretic explication, namely of constitutional
dictatorship formula. In historical and comparative perspective
this system of government means the establishment and development of
unlimited power of one person by formally adopted constitutional methods
– on the base of the manifested people’s consent, unanimous agreement
of all branches of power and in formal accordance with the letter if not
spirit of the constitution in action. In reality this reform could be interpreted
as the so-called “juridical coup” – deep transformation of the whole constitutional
order, while, without visible violations of formal amending norms
and procedures. Taking this idea as a conceptual cornerstone of the Russian
constitutional reform, the author analyses constitutional dictatorship as the
particular system of government, its different notions, historical and current
modifications, ideological grounds, political regime, the special role of the
head of the state as a constitutional dictator, and the problem of the supreme
power continuity, legitimacy, and preeminence under this form of
authoritarian rule. The analyses gravitation center involves such parameters
as a new symbolic status of the head of the state, the enlargement of his
prerogatives, the mandate to power duration, and the problem of successor
solution.