Municipal law is considered to be a separate legal category, however, one of its key characteristics is its nature, which is related to other branches of law. However, based on what criteria does it stand out among those areas with which it correlates? What is the specificity of its subject and methods? What factors determine the features of municipal law in the Russian political model?
Item Definition
The subject of municipal law, according to the definition widespread among Russian lawyers, is legal relations in the field of local self-government. At the same time, when determining the subject of the legal industry under consideration, its complex nature should be taken into account.
The fact is that local self-government is in close interaction with other types of public relations, as well as levels of communication, one way or another connected with the socio-political processes in municipalities. In particular, the norms of budget legislation imply a close interconnection of local, regional and federal authorities. In addition, the subjects of legal relations can be citizens, entrepreneurs, commercial organizations or those that are not related to business.
The subject of the branch of municipal law is the complex interaction of entities at various levels of political influence and in different legal statuses, which at the same time are combined by a factor of a common territory, location within a common municipal unit.
Classification of municipal law
The subject of municipal law implies the existence of specific regulatory standards, which are considered one of the key elements of the relevant legal industry. They are characterized by all those signs that characterize the norms of other areas of law: compulsory, the presence of political guarantees and mechanisms of legal enforcement.
Classification of norms in the field of municipal law can be carried out on various grounds. So, in the framework of one of the models they are divided into regulatory and protective. The first include legal norms that record competencies at the level of municipal authorities authorities, the legal status of certain groups of citizens, regulate how the implementation of the functions of local self-government should be carried out. In turn, the protective norms are designed to fix the criteria for violations, as well as determine the necessary mechanisms for legal protection of citizens and other entities involved in the process of socio-political communications at the municipal level.
In the legal environment, the classification of legal norms is widespread, suggesting their division into imperative and dispositive. Both of them are also characteristic of municipal law. According to lawyers, the relevant industry is more characterized by the imperative type of norm. The specifics that the subject of municipal law possesses, therefore, presupposes activities that in many respects require following certain instructions, orders, orders, etc.
Municipal Legal Institutions
The structure of municipal law involves the combined functioning of a number of key socio-political institutions. Consider their features.
First of all, it is an institution of local self-government. Those legal relations that form the subject of municipal law arise mainly due to ongoing processes precisely at the level of local self-organization of power.People, companies, governing bodies carry out legal relations that have an institutional basis.
Municipal law also presupposes the existence of an institution of political guarantees, which ensures the stability of the functioning of the elements of socio-political communications at the level of local self-organization of power.
It can be expressed at the level of national laws, including, for example, the Constitution. Accordingly, the local government can exercise its powers based on fundamental legal acts that have greater legal force than any municipal laws. These are normative sources that guarantee the protection of local authorities from legal consequences arising from incorrect actions of local legislative structures and other subjects of legal relations.
The most important for municipal legal processes is the institution of elections (national representation). It determines the legal way of forming local authorities, which is called one of the most effective in the world.
Related nature of norms
Features of the subject of municipal law suggest that the relevant legislative norms are usually related in nature, closely interacting with those that regulate legal relations in other legal sectors. Municipal socio-political and economic communications correlate with the provisions of labor, administrative, land, financial, budget legislation.
It is difficult enough to find examples of laws that, in their pure form, would be municipal in nature without interacting with the norms of other legal sectors. One way or another, most legal acts issued by local authorities direct the application of the rules of law adopted at the level of the noted legal areas.
Municipal law method
The main method of municipal law is determined by the specifics of peremptory legislative norms that are most characteristic of the legal branch under consideration. Legal regulation at the level of local government, as well as, incidentally, in the system of state administration at the level of regions and the federal center, is carried out by imperative methods. They are characterized, first of all, by the inequality of subjects of legal relations. The subject of municipal law also assumes that, for example, one or another administrative order of a local authority will be binding on all citizens of a locality or on a specific group of them.
Imperative methods
Consider the main varieties imperative method. Firstly, this is a prescription. It lies in the fact that for a particular subject of legal relations, a specific procedure is established for which there can be no alternative (as it could be under dispositive legal norms). As a rule, authorities issue regulations, thereby forming legal facts causing the emergence of legal relations. Secondly, it is a ban. This method presupposes the existence of legislative provisions that imply the inadmissibility of the subject to take certain actions due to the use of retaliatory activities by the authorities.
Dispositive methods
However, municipal law also allows dispositive methods. Among those - permission. This method assumes that the subjects of legal relations can undertake certain activities or inaction, depending on their own will, personal preferences, priorities. Permission can be characterized by certainty when the subject chooses one of the possible behaviors.So, for example, the formation of municipal authorities can be carried out through several mechanisms, the residents of a particular locality or political representatives representing their interests have the right to choose a specific one.
Another dispositive method is reconciliation. It is used if there is a need to find a compromise between the positions of several subjects of legal relations. As an option, between the authorities of two neighboring municipal territories.
There is a method of recommendations, which also belongs to the category of dispositive. Its essence lies in providing the subject of legal relations with a preferred algorithm of activities in various fields. This method is often combined with encouragement, which implies the establishment of certain benefits if the subject follows the recommendations of the authorities.
Place of municipal law in the national legal system
So, the subject of the branch of municipal law is legal relations, which are part of social communications directly related to the local level of political processes. Their participants can be both private individuals and organizations in various statuses, as well as authorities - local, regional, federal.
The subject of municipal law is their interaction in correlation with the local level of activity. It may seem that the significance from the point of view of the development of the national legal system of these legal relations is low, since the structure of political governance assumes entities at levels higher, which are structures at the regional or federal level. But this is not so.
Municipality - an element of statehood
The object and subject of municipal law are legal categories that some researchers consider to be fundamental elements of statehood. The thing is that normative regulation carried out through acts adopted at the federal and even regional levels is sometimes unable to take into account the specifics of legal relations carried out at the level of municipal territories. There is a version that this is due to the fact that local government in the Russian Federation, even at the level of the Constitution of the country, is separated from the state. The legislator rightly believes that the solution of local issues is desirable with the direct participation of entities that participate in legal relations at the municipal level.
The subject and method of municipal law, which we investigated above, suggest the complexity of legal relations in the field of local self-government. Federal structures of power may be quite competent in resolving a narrow range of issues (for example, in the field of the armed forces, nature protection, the work of various civil services, etc.). However, their representatives may not always have the necessary level of knowledge in the field of social communications in a particular city or rural community.
Having examined the concept, subject, method of municipal law, we can explore the practical aspect of the interaction of the legal industry that we are studying and real socio-political processes. We can study it by the example of the relationship of municipal law and the mechanisms of formation of local authorities. What are the features of these communications?
The fact is that this issue involves a rather interesting and meaningful discussion. In the scientific and expert community, several opposing points of view have emerged regarding how local governments should be formed. There are theoreticians who believe that there should be as much democracy as possible at the municipal level: legislative and executive structures of power working at the local level should be formed through elections.In turn, there is a point of view whose supporters believe that the authorities in municipalities should be appointed by higher structures of political governance. At the same time, supporters of this and other points of view give reasonably logical arguments. Their detailed study is a separate subject of municipal law science. But we can consider the basic essence of both approaches.
More autonomy and democracy
According to the first point of view, the concept and subject of municipal law suggest that the most effective mechanisms of self-government can be implemented only with the active participation of citizens in the formation of political institutions at the appropriate level.
Among the key arguments of experts is the active participation of the population in self-government, which implies less dependence on the center, which, in the case of the authoritarian, vertical model, uses local resources in exchange for its services in the form of assistance to the formation of authorities. In practice, this means that taxes of local enterprises go to the center, although they could well become part of the local budget and serve as a resource for the development of local infrastructure. In addition, in fact, we noted this above, those people who are appointed to managerial positions by the center may not be competent enough in solving urgent issues at the level of a particular municipality.
Or a strong power vertical?
Proponents of a different point of view believe that with such an uneven development of the regions of the Russian Federation, as is now observed, democratic approaches are not the best option. Some subjects of the federation are subsidized. If they are given autonomy, which, in turn, can be broadcast to the municipalities, then the level of economic development in them can drop sharply. This can predetermine the most negative consequences - up to separatist sentiments.
The Russian political center should support regions that are objectively behind in economic terms. For this, a financial resource is needed, and there is nowhere to take it from, except from economically prosperous regions. Accordingly, in order for subsidies from the center to be spent efficiently, one cannot allow people in power to come to power in the local territories who are striving for a policy that is frankly independent of the center. However, with too much passion for democracy, the likelihood of their coming to power only increases.
The concept and subject of municipal law is a complex set of elements, the essence of which, moreover, can periodically change. This happens at least due to the movement of the level political freedom in the municipality between the two poles - democratic and authoritarian, which we mentioned above. The subject of municipal law is relations between local entities, however, a situation is possible in which larger players in the political field will play an important role. And this is also one of the signs of the complexity of the relevant legal industry, consisting in a variety of possible levels of legal relations.
