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Unit 6: Socio-Economic Bases and Salient Features of the Constitutions

33. State protection of Russian citizens living abroad, freedom from deportation and forced Notes
extradition.
34. Right to choose citizenship of a foreign State and enjoy double citizenship.
35. Right to political asylum.
The duties and obligations of the citizens are:
1. Caring for elders and parents by children above 18 yeas of age.
2. Payment of legal taxes and levies.
3. Preservation of nature, care of the natural resources and environment.
4. Defending the country and performing military service or services in any form for this sake.
5. Respecting the Constitution and laws of the Federation as well as norms of international treaties
and universal human rights.
In fine, the Russian Constitution embodies all those rights which are honoured in a liberal -
democratic system. If the words of Laski ring true that a state is known by the rights it maintains,
then the Russian Federation is by all means a democratic State.
Federal System

The Russian Constitution establishes a federal system which is quite different from the system
established by the Stalin Constitution of 1936 and by the Brezhnev Constitution of 1977 that was
designated by the critics as ‘quasi-federal’, in spite of the fact that the complex mechanism of the
constituent units remains by and large the same. It meets all the requirements of a federal system
in the following manner:
First, the Constitution is written, rigid and supreme law of the land. It has 137 Articles and the
method of amending it is quite difficult. It is the supreme law of the land. As such, all laws of the
Centre as well as of the constituent units must conform to it.
Second, Art.71 spells out following powers of the Federation:
1. Adoption and amendment of the Constitution and federal laws; control over, and compliance
therewith,
2. Federation structure and the territory of the Russian Federation,
3. Regulation and protection of human and civil rights and freedoms; citizenship of the Federation,
regulation and protection of the rights of national minorities,
4. Establishment of the system of federal legislative, executive and judicial bodies, the procedure
for their organization and activities, formation of federal and State government bodies,
5. Federal and State property and administration thereof,
6. Establishment of the basic principles of federal policies and federal programmes in the sphere
of State, economic, ecological, social, cultural and national development of the Russian
Federation,
7. Establishment of the basic legal principles for the unified market; financial, currency, credit
and customs regulation; money emission; the basic principles of pricing policy, federal economic
services, including federal banks,
8. Federal budget, federal taxes and levies, federal funds for regional development,
9. Federal power-engineering systems, nuclear power, fissile materials, federal transport, railways,
information and communication, activities in space.
10. Foreign policy and international relations of Russia, international treaties of the Federation,
issues of war and peace.
11. Foreign economic relations of the Federation,
12. Defence and security, military production, determination of the procedure for selling and
purchasing weapons, ammunition, military equipment and other military hardware, production
of poisonous substances and the procedure for their use.

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