[MUSIC] So what are the preconditions for the Russian constitutional specific identity and for the Russian constitutional exceptionalism? I would try to define at least three groups of these preconditions, though I think we can discuss much more of them. But first is obviously the historical circumstances of forming the new Russian constitutional system based on the mixture of old and new elements. I would say that historically in Russia, for at least in 20th century, there was very original system of government, system of social organization. I mean Soviet system which was exported from Russia to many countries of people's democracies to the countries of the Soviet socialist system. And Russia was the root, the source of this new, in the beginning of 20th century and new during the whole 20th century, new system of government and constitutional design. But after the beginning of reforms started in 1980s, Russia was not anymore the source for original institutions and original principles. But rather the borrower of those principles which was developed and practiced in Western democracies. And in this matter Russia was no more the original and specific system which could appeal to its own specificity. So it is still very influential in the people's minds, in the mentality of Russian people both in ordinary people's minds and in the political system in speeches of officials, of politicians, and in public discussions in general. This is historical part which is very close to the second group of preconditions, mainly psychological. Psychological preconditions for appearance of the specific Russian constitutional identity. Psychologically to fill themselves by the Russian citizens, as citizens of very big, great, and important country in the world politics was very important for many people and it is very important until now. Today many people see that Russia, for some years of the late 20th century, was no more that great empire, that great country, which they could be proud of. And psychologically it was not comfortable, especially in the system of thinking which was inherited from the Cold War. Cold War is still very alive both in the West and in Russia as well. People still think that there are two systems, and they still oppose Russia to the whole world. And if they need to copy from this world, from the Western democracies, those principles which quite recently were rejected as not fitting the social conditions of the Russian society. Today it is very hard to explain that we should follow these principles and try to make them a part of our political or economic system of social organization. So this psychologically feeling like lost Cold War was very important part for reforms, development in Russia, since the adoption of our current constitution in 1993. And the third, maybe the least important but still influential and substantial, preconditions is the political situation. Politically the interests of the Russian Federation sometimes are supposed to be in contrary to interests in many other countries. And they are quite opposite to interests of many Western states. So if their interests aren't contrary to our national interests, we should not follow their principles of organization of social life. According to this approach, in Russia, the own specific system of values, specific constitutional identity started to develop. Still many people believed that in Russia we should develop these specific principles though in the text of the Russian Constitution the system of values was written down quite oriented on the system of constitutional principles in the Western democracies. If we open the text of the Russian Constitution, one of the first articles reads, the human rights, actually the human and her rights and freedoms, are the supreme value for the Russian State. And the State should protect values of these rights and freedoms, and the state should act according to respect of the highest, the supremest, values. These ideas was put into the text of the Russian Constitution by those who wrote its text in 1990s. And namely very known Russian lawyer Sergei Alekseev later wrote in his writings that they tried to make the constitution of a human, rather than the constitution of a state. But those principles written down in the Constitution sometimes counterbalanced with other principles. And these other principles are like that principle which appears in Article 55. And reads that all freedoms and all rights of individuals could be limited by the state through adoption of federal law. And this can be done for protection of some social interests like state security, protection of public morality, and rise in freedoms of others. In this system of account balancing principles the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation, or any other legislator, any other state authorities, could use those principles which they believed to be mostly correct in a certain situation. So the development of interpretation and understanding of the Russian Constitution shows that it was more in favor of protection of the limitation of rights rather than putting them into the core of the Russian legal system and into the core of making legal decisions by Russian authorities. This was a kind of change of development in the Russian constitutional reforms. And this was quite obvious for the Russian Constitutional Court to make accent more on the constitutional grounds for limitation rather than on protection of human rights. So we can see that both the Russian Constitutional Court make an assessment of decisions of legislature, and the Russian Judiciary and the Russian Executive. In fact, in their activity, when they make decisions, they try to follow the identity of the Russian society, how they understood it to be. And they in the first order trying to focus on the public interest, on the interest of the whole society, and if the interests of an individual is in contrary to the interest of the society the later should prevail. Interest of the individual are to be limited in favor of social solidarity, social justice, the development of the whole society etc, etc. And we can see this kind of decisions in many legal acts adopted in the past years. And we can find them in a number of decision made by the Russian authorities, like those which concern the new payments which are compulsory for all Russian citizens. They are based on some limitation, protection of rights etc, etc. So in the very end the Russian Constitutional Court follow the way of self-restraint policy. And the Russian Constitutional Court tried to make a constitutional evaluation of any law basing rather on the idea of rational basis test. Trying to looking for a rational basis for any limitation of rights, but not trying to apply the proportionality principle like those constitutional courts which played a very important role in the modern Western democracies.
