The Comparative Analysis of the Structure and Legal Technique of the Electoral Acts of the Russian Federation, France and Canada

Abstract

The article reasons the necessity to perform an analysis of the contemporary legal regulation of elections in Russian Federation not only in aspect of its content, but also in aspect of the structure and legal technique used in the corresponding legal texts. The author notes the recent development of the Russian electoral legislation shows its inner logic and less and less reflects the features of its Western European sources. Analysis and comparison of the structure and legal technique is conducted of the following electoral legal acts: Russian Federal Laws "On the principal guarantees of the Russian citizens' electoral rights and its right to participate in referendum" and "On the elections of the State Duma deputies", Electoral Code of France and Canada Elections Act. On the base of collected information which includes newly found actual data the author argues highs and lows of the discovered approaches of respective national legislator and surmises motives which could determine them. Comparison of Russian electoral acts to its foreign counterparts confirms general similarity of its content while different approaches to the structure and important specifics of the completeness and particularity of the legal regulation of electoral relations. On example of the Electoral Code of France it is shown that the complication of the legal act structure by extensive use of the "general rule - specific rule" pattern is favorable only in the limited number of cases. The conclusion is made that the distinctive feature of the Russian electoral legislation is a consistent adherence to the principle which demands to place articles in an order determined by the sequence of the electoral procedure stages. Also the Russian electoral legislation is differentiated by unreasonable growth of the articles as base structure elements of legal acts.