Сonstitutional reform in Russia: theoretical and legal analysis

Introduction: in the absence of social preconditions for true constitutionalism in Russia in the form of an independent judiciary and developed institutions of civil society, the country’s political elite decided on constitutional reform. However, even after its implementation, the question of its true goals and its impact on strengthening the separation of powers remained unresolved. Political and legal practice has shown the absence in Russia of forces capable of resisting the strengthening of the President’s status against the background of broad public support for him. The article attempts to give a fair assessment of the completed constitutional reform and analyze its impact on the balance between the branches of government. Materials and methods: the solution of research problems was achieved through a comprehensive analysis of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in terms of amendments made to it, decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, as well as theoretical developments of domestic and foreign constitutionalists on the issue of constitutional reform. The methodology of the work includes the use of both general scientific methods (analysis, observation, generalization, comparison, description) and special methods of legal science, including historical-legal and formal-legal. The results of the study allowed to reveal the content of a number of constitutional amendments from the standpoint of constitutionalism and show their ambiguity in the context of constitutional principles. Findings and Conclusions: the author, noting the ambiguity of the constitutional reform, comes to the conclusion that despite the presence of some progressive changes in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a number of amendments did not bring anything new to the domestic mechanism of legal regulation. Among the new norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, there are irrational and populist decisions, and the excessive strengthening of the President of the Russian Federation negates, in the author’s opinion, the merits of this reform.