Municipal service: concept, characteristics, principles

In the article, the issues are analyzed devoted to one of the elements of the organizational fundamentals of the local self-government - to the municipal service. Viewing the municipal service as a complicated social and legal institution and the system of legal norms regulation the rights and duties, limitations, prohibitions, stimulation, responsibilities of the officers, the order of the work relationships start and termination, the author analyzes the regulatory documents on the issue in question and the most interesting opinions of the domestic scientists. The municipal service is proposed to be studied from the objective and the subjective point of views. The municipal service from the objective point of view is the system of the legal norms that regulates the public relations in the activity sphere of the local self-government bodies and officials, the relations associated with the municipal service start, career progressing at it and retirement from it. Subjectively, the municipal service is the professional activity of the individuals occupying the municipal positions of the municipal service, having a labor contract and working at the local self-government positions paid from the local budget and aimed at exercising the municipal entity rights and duties. It is proposed to classify the municipal service principles as follows: - general: legality; supremacy of the Russian Constitution, federal laws and the Russian Federation territories' laws over other legal acts; the priority of the human and citizen rights; independence of the local self-government bodies within the limits of their authority; equal access of the citizens to the municipal service; the unity of the principal requirements for the municipal service; legal and social safety; publicity in municipal service; - special: professionalism and competence of the municipal service officers; the controllability of the officers to the population and the local self-government representative body; the liability of the municipal officers for their failure to fulfill or improper fulfillment of their professional duties; no-party membership of the municipal service. It is shown that the municipal officers are the employees of the local self-government bodies. The determinative classification of the municipal service should be the one generally accepted in science classification of the local self-government employees into managers, specialists and technical performers. The author supports the idea that the municipal officers cannot be the persons holding an elective local self-government post (the municipal entity managers, deputies of the local self-government representative bodies, other electoral persons) and technical performers, as well as the officials of other municipal institutions and organizations.