Local Self-Government in the Context of the 2020 Constitutional Reform

Local self-government in modern Russia was revived in the early 1990s. The legislation then in force was aimed at separating local self-government from the system of state authorities and ensuring its autonomy. The independence of local self-government was also established by the 1993 Constitution of Russia. As a follow-up to the provisions of the Constitution, the Federal Law dated 06 Oct 2003 No. 131-FZ “On General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation” was adopted. The Federal Law initiated the reform of local self-government aimed at improving the efficiency of local self-government bodies as an independent level of the public power most closely associated with the population. However, the municipal power is now radically different from that created in those years. This is primarily preconditioned by the lack of the necessary amount of its own revenue necessary to enable the municipal power to exercise its authority independently. The majority of municipalities need state assistance and interbudgetary transfers. The necessity to exercise control over the state budget spendings has led to the fact that the main trend in the development of local self-government in Russia was its integration into the vertical of public power. The legal crystallization of this process was carried out by amending the current legislation, especially the Federal Law No. 131-FZ dated 06 Oct 2003. The Constitutional Reform of 2020 has legitimized these changes.

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