The prospects of lawmaking on labour rights and freedoms by the regions of the Russian Federation

Priority of rights and freedoms of citizens was recognized in the Russian Federation not so long ago. An important component in ensuring that priority in a democratic state is protection of labor rights and compliance with the freedom of labor principle. Labour standards secured in the Labour Code (LC RF) and the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 are quite different from the labour standards of the Constitutions of 1936 and 1977, in which the labour duty was defined as a principal characteristic of the social structure, and “spongers" and “parasites" were excluded from participation in a social life. The current Constitution of the Russian Federation represents a norm saying that the labor is a free choice, according to which every citizen is free to choose his or her own profession and occupation and cannot be hold administratively liable for being unemployed. Modern standards of the Russian labour law were certainly formed on the basis of the international law principles, supplemented by some provisions. For example, the Article 4 of the LC RF defines the concept of “forced labor" (work that an employee is forced to perform under the threat of punishment), which is not contained in the international declarations, and also prohibits unjustified differences in determination and changing the terms of remuneration of labour. The authors are confident that the protection of freedom of labor as an absolute natural labor law should be carried out not only in a judicial procedure. They also claim that the system of labour right protection is in its formative stage in Russia and requires continuous improvement.