Constitutional Sources of Law in the Russian Federation on the Basis of Acts Regarding the Conservation

The constitutional catalogue of the sources of law, clear and unambiguous division of acts into commonly binding and internal ones, is of fundamental meaning for the realization of the state of law rules, i.e. legalism and the rule of law, from the perspective of European democracies. Since it is the essence of every democratic legislation to base its functioning on the law established by organs that have been assigned for that aim, binding its addressees and executed by public authorities, also with the use of the means of coercion.

This article aims at presenting the outline of the constitutional system of the sources of law in the Russian Federation and illustrating it, as much as it is possible, with acts regarding the conservation of the environment. In particular, the objective of this work is to determine the name of a given source, an organ competent to issue it, its function and position in the hierarchy, as well as the rule of promulgation. The key research issue here is the distinguishing between the sources of commonly binding law and the ones of internal law, as the regulation of the Russian Federation Constitution does not preordain explicitly. Yet this issue is of crucial significance when it comes to the status of law subjects. Acts of internal character may be directed merely at organizational units submitted to an organ issuing the acts and may not directly regulate the sphere of rights and obligations, neither constitute the bases of decisions concerning citizens, legal entities or other subjects.