Rethinking the relationship between international and national law at the turn of the epoch (on the amendment to article 79 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation)

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IGOR N. BARTSITS^а

^аRussian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

DOI: 10.22394/2070-8378-2020-22-1-33-42

Abstract:
The article is devoted to revealing the specifics of the implementation of such areas of constitutional law as the constitutionalization of international law and the internationalization of constitutional law by the example of additions to Article 79 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as well as the practices of the Italian Constitutional Court, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, etc. The author examined in sufficient detail the procedures for extending the effect of international law and international treaties of Russia to the national legal system, analyzed the concept of counter-limits in European and national judicial practice, presented the basic principles of interaction between European and national courts (the principle of subsidiarity, the principle of proportionality, the principle of ‘sincere cooperation’, method of ‘dialogue of judges’). There is a need for an updated understanding of the term ‘constitutional sovereignty of the state’, which is based on domestic norms on fundamental rights and norms on the foundations of the constitutional system, which presupposes the inadmissibility of any foreign or international influence that violates the requirement of priority of the norms and principles of the national Constitution in the national legal system. The article substantiates the expediency of using the doctrine of counter-limits in the Russian Federation as an instrument of constitutional self-defense, ensuring constitutional sovereignty and preserving constitutional identity.

Keywords:
constitutional identity, international law, constitutional sovereignty, communitarian law, constitutional self-defense, constitutional amendments

Received:
February 18, 2020

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