Constitutional Justice of Russia within the judicial landscape of contemporary Europe

Abstract

The Russian Federation became a member of the Council of Europe in 1996. This step determined the development of Russia’s judicial system for the coming several decades and made it possible for Russia’s national system of law to integrate into judicial landscape of Europe, thereby enabling Russia to uphold democratic values. The emergence of new legislation affected all branches of Russia’s system of law. But the experience of the two decades has demonstrated that such modernization can be effective only by way of dialogue rather than by simple copying and implementing international rules. An important role in this process was played by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (RF) that was founded in 1991. The paper reviews the role it played in the 1993 Constitutional crisis, examines the Court’s structure and powers, and also analyzes the juridical nature of its decisions. The Author analyzes the collisions between decisions handed down by the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitution of Russia from the point of view of the stand taken by the Constitutional Court of the RF. In the¿ end, the Author arrives at the conclusion that there is a need for a dialogue among European and national systems of justice with the help of filtration mechanisms and multilevel constitutionalism.