Socio-Economic Provisions of the Constitution: New Regulation and Study in the Constitutional Law Course

Abstract

The article is devoted to the regulation and study of the socio-economic provisions of the Constitution of Russia. The author points to the absence of a chapter on the fundamentals of the social structure. Replacing such a chapter with a more general chapter on the fundamentals of the entire constitutional system has its advantages and disadvantages, gives rise to different methodological approaches to the study of the constitutional foundations of the social structure, and in particular its socio-economic principles. The combination of such principles, basic socio-economic provisions, constitutional institutions governing the main socio-economic relations, creates a specific socio-economic paradigm (model) for an individual constitution or a group of similar constitutions. The article proposes a scheme for the study of such principles and provisions, and names some socio-economic principles that are not fixed but necessary for a modern constitution. The article analyzes the approaches to the legal definition of the concept of the constitution. The author points to a new vector of constitutional development. On this basis, the structure of constitutional law may be somewhat changed. Having analyzed the experience of the constitutional development of some foreign countries, the existing constitutions, conclusions and proposals of constitutional scholars, the author determines that the paradigm of the modern constitution includes five components.