Constitutional Development In The Ussr

Constitutional Development in the USSR (1981) looks at the political institutions and practices of the Soviet state through the prism of its own constitutional texts. It contains the texts of all four Soviet constitutions, and a chapter of commentary precedes each text. An overall assessment of Soviet constitutional development is offered in the concluding chapter.

Moving from the adoption of the "post-Stalin" Constitution of 1977 through its subsequent implementation under Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko to the radical legal "restructuring" of the Gorbachev years, Robert Sharlet traces the gradual evolution of a nascent constitutionalism in the erstwhile USSR. Sharlet, a noted authority on Soviet law and constitutional development, demonstrates the gradual transformation of law from an instrument of Communist Party rule into the new "rules of the game" for nonauthoritarian political development. In effect, he argues, one of Gorbachev's most durable achievements may be his redefinition of Soviet politics into a legal idiom along with his relocation of policymaking from behind the closed doors of Party conclaves into the more open, emergent arena of constitutional government. In analyzing the politics of law from the Brezhnev era to the rise of Yeltsin, the author takes account of the "war of laws", the symbolic uses of the Soviet constitution, and even the fact that the leaders of the failed coup attempted to justify their seizure of power on constitutional grounds. Constitutionalism has sufficiently suffused Soviet public life, the book concludes, that most of the sovereign republics as successors to the former USSR, have begun designing their futures - to varying degrees - in constitutional forms.

Medushevsky examines constitutionalism in Russia from Tsarist times to the present. He traces the different attitudes to constitutionalism in political thought, and in practice, at different periods, showing how the balance between authoritarianism and liberalism has shifted. In addition, he discusses the importance of constitutional developments for societies in transition, and concludes that post-communist constitutional development in Russia is still far from complete. As an empirical resource, Russian Constitutionalism takes a longer historical view than other books on this topic, and it also goes further than this in its interpretive approach, providing a greater understanding of Russian constitutionalism.

Contains texts of constitutions of various countries which were once part of the U.S.S.R.

Constitution, text and commentary, USSR, 1977.

The written contributions compiled in this book are based upon lectures held during a symposium on the administrative law implementation & enforcement of community law organized by the Directorate General Financial Control & the Dutch Law Association for the Study of Protection of Financial Interests of the EC. The topic is regarded from the perspective of both administrative practice & administrative law. While concentrating on the Dutch case the arguments put forward should also be of interest to the other EC countries since they also have to deal with both community law & national administrative law. Furthermore the book sheds light upon the development of community law in general. The importance of national administrative law for the putting into practice of community law is a topic which has received increasing attention from both the sides of administrative practice & legal science. At the same time it is clear that administrative law has acquired more & more community tasks & obligations. The latter development might point towards an European version of administrative law in the future.

This book deals with the development of constitutional law in China and Visegrad states by employing a comparative perspective. It is the first time that the researcher compared the constitutional development in the China and the Visegrad states. It offers a few glimpses of development of constitution in the (former) socialist states to readers who are interested in the constitutional law or China–V4 relations. With the increased cooperation between China and V4 countries, this book gives the undergraduates in the university to think about the BRI and 17+1 network from a Chinese perspective. Last, compared to the previous works which mainly focus on North America and/or Western Europe, this book provides a new angle on comparative constitutional law.