Secular State Discussions at the Constitutional Meeting

Abstract

S.S. Alexeev, one of the architects of the "Presidential" Draft Constitution that was introduced for discussion and amendment at the 1993 Constitutional Meeting defined the essence of a secular state as 'civilized, non-religious, not over-ideologized state.' Not all participants of the Meeting shared that formula. Some of them considered the idea of a secular state for "our society to be hollow," although many saw its interrelation with the federal form of governance, and, which is more important, with a democratic rule-of-law state. A compound approach to understanding the essence of the secular state, its content and, in general, the usefulness of its constitutional regulation, resulted in very hot debates at the Meeting, especially among representatives of various political, religious and nonreligious views. The paper is devoted to the controversy among the Meeting's participants surrounding the notions of 'secular state,' 'atheistic activity,' 'freedom of expression of atheistic opinions.' The paper focuses attention on the extent to which participants of the Constitutional Meeting, especially the representatives of the legal science and expert institutions, managed to influence amendments made in the original text submitted by the RF President.