SOURCES OF RUSSIAN LAW

Historically, Russia belongs to the continental legal system, and a written law, which was passed under the established legislative procedure, is the main legal source. About 10,000 laws, regulations, and other legal acts are passed in Russia annually.

The Constitution is the supreme Russian law and major legislative instrument. It establishes the principle of superiority of law in the system of legal sources. All other legal acts, such as decrees of the President, Governmental regulations, acts of Ministries and other federal executive agencies, as well as legislation passed by the constituent components of the Russian Federation cannot contradict laws. All laws are passed exclusively by the Federal Assembly.

Federal constitutional laws establish the group of the most important legislative acts. Because of their significance, the Russian Constitution provides for the complicated procedure of their adoption. The federal constitutional law is adopted if it has been approved by at least three-quarters of the total number of the Federation Council members and by at least two-thirds of the total number of the State Duma members. The President of Russia cannot veto federal constitutional laws. The list of federal constitutional laws is prescribed by the Constitution. It includes laws on the state of emergency, the change of the status of a constituent component of the federation, on constitutional amendments, on government, on referendum, on the judiciary, on the Constitutional Court, and some other.

Federal laws constitute the second category of legal sources. They regulate issues included into executive authority of the Russian Federation and its components. The Constitution protects priority and direct effect of federal laws throughout the territory of Russia. In case of a conflict between federal law and another act issued in Russia, the law will prevail. Meanwhile, the Constitution guarantees the priority of the act of a constituent component if such act regulates issues outside the Russian Federation’s scope of authority. Often, Russian laws are adopted in the form of a Code of Law. A Code is a complete collection of rules in an entire subject area such as: civil law, criminal law, labour law, etc.

Universally acknowledged principles and standards of international law and international treaties of the Russian Federation are a part of Russia’s legal system. Should an international treaty of the Russian Federation establish rules other than those established by a domestic law, the rules of the international treaty will prevail.

Decrees and directives of the President establish a separate category of legal acts and do not belong to subordinate legislation. Due to an absence of required laws, the President can pass decrees regarding all questions without any limits if a valid federal law does not regulate this issue, except of cases when the Constitution directly says that the question requires the adoption of a federal law.

An additional group of delegate legislation is comprised by normative acts of federal executive authorities. These acts are related to laws through Directives of the Government. They develop, add, and concretize existing legal norms. There are different forms of such acts: regulations, orders and instructions, varying by its content and the procedure of adoption

Following the traditional civil law approach, judicial practice is restricted to applying and interpreting the law, and the precedent cannot serve as a legal source. According to Russian legal doctrine, judges are supposed to use only written law contained in codes, statutes, or regulations in deciding a case; however, a decision to vacate a particular legal act proves to be a source of law, and the Constitutional Court indicated that its previous decisions shall be followed as stare decisis. Even though attorneys use prior judicial decisions in their arguments, judges should not refer to prior cases in their decisions. Court judgments in individual cases are not precedents for future decisions.