The principle of maintaining trust in the law and protecting “legitimate expectations”

Abstract

The Constitution of the Russian Federation provides that laws must not be adopted in Russia that abolish or diminish the rights and freedoms of a person and citizen (part 2 of article 55). However, the national legal system cannot be in a state of permanent homeostasis and changes in the legal regulation of legislative models for the realization of certain rights are inevitable. At the same time, the principle of maintaining the confidence of citizens in the law and the actions of state power performs the function of verifying the legal (including legislative) policy to constitutional maxima.

The difficulty is associated with the search for criteria for the permissibility of legislative transformations of conditions and the procedure for the implementation of constitutional rights, “boundary conditions,” under which such changes in legal regulation can be recognized as permissible. The article examines the various methods used by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation to limit the discretion of the legislator in accordance with the principle of maintaining confidence in the law and the actions of state authorities.

References

(in Russian)