The 1993 Russian constitution has been amended many times. The largest amendment was carried out on March 14, 2020. However, this is not a revision of the Constitution. The amendment includes changes strengthening the constitutional position of the President of the Russian Federation, correcting the federal system and the legal status of the bicameral Parliament and the Government of the Russian Federation. A new constitutional body was introduced, the State Council of the Russian Federation, and, for the first time, a provision on faith in God was introduced. Russia’s right not to recognize rulings and decisions of international bodies contrary to the Russian Constitution and the right to support compatriots living abroad in the exercise of their rights to protect their interests were enshrined. The amendment to the Russian Constitution is of fundamental importance for the policy pursued and the implementation of Russia’s national security strategy.

The article is devoted to the analysis and the characteristics of the rights and the proxies of the monarch in Romania according to the Constitution of 1866. The adoption of the first Basic Law was the fateful act in the history of the state-building processes of Romania and contributed to its development as the sovereign state. The Constitution had the contractual nature and established the compromise between the young bourgeoisie and the large landowners in the form of the constitutional monarchy. The king in Romania for a long time remained the person who was «above» of all the state and political leadership of the country. This status and the proxies of the monarch were delegated with the first Basic Law. The legal fixing of such legal status of the monarch at the level of the Constitution made it possible to establish full-fledged royal power, which was an extremely important state-political step for the development of Romania as the independent country. The constitutional foundations, the functions and the limitations of the institution of the monarchical power in the principality were fixed in the number of the articles of the Constitution of 1866. At the same time, the important state-constitutional aspect was the clear fixation that all proxies of the monarch could be done based on the interests of the Romanian nation. The Basic Law of 1866 established the proxies of the monarch such as in the legislative branch of power (the right of legislative initiative, the right of the interpretation of laws, Articles 32–34); executive power (had to implement it in the manner determined with the Constitution, Article 35) and partially in the justice system (the right to declare amnesty on the political issues, the right to postpone or to mitigate punishment in criminal cases, Article 93). For strengthening of the foundations of the statehood, the Constitution officially established the principle of the hereditary power of the monarch (Article 82). His person was declared inviolable. Herewith, the Romanian constitutionalists fixed that the monarch did not have any other proxies, except those granted to him with the Basic Law (Article 96). Adopted in 1866, the Basic Law approved legally the democratic aspirations of the Romanian nation. It defined directly the most important principles of the state functioning as the principle of the national sovereignty, the principle of the division of powers, the principle of representative government, the principle of hereditary monarchy, the principle of the responsibility of the state officials, the principle of the Rule of law, etc. The Basic Law definitely contributed to the gradual democratization of the state-governing and public structures, the formation of the concept of the civil personality and untouchability, foresaw the presence of the political and legal pluralism in the country, etc. Due to the introduction of the institution of the constitutional monarchy, that ruler in the person of Karl I could establish and hold the certain political balance in the country between the liberals and the conservatives, which opened the possibility to potentially strengthen the two-party system and laid the foundations of the civil society and the future constitutional life of Romania.

Constitutional Guarantees for Local Self-Government in the Light of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany

The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of constitutional guarantees that are important for the existence and functioning of local self-government in the Federal Republic of Germany. These guarantees are contained in Article 28 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. The guardian of the constitutional order is the Federal Constitutional Court and the constitutional courts of the Länder. Using the legal-dogmatic method supplemented by the method of systemic analysis, the article explicates the guarantees for local self-government in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany with reference also to the rulings of the FCC in this regard. The addressee of the guarantee is the federation, the Länder and the local self-government units. German local self-government is one of the complementary pillars of the federal state structure. The Basic Law guarantees both the existence of local self-government and its political independence.