Local government: pothole in the road

The Constitution enshrined the principle of "the boss knows better"

This article was in the works a couple of days after the announcement of the message to the Federal Assembly. However, it quickly demanded adjustments - events are developing so rapidly, amendments to the Constitution are adopted in such a hurry that you willy-nilly think that the Kremlin is in a state of panic attack.

In this article, I planned to talk not about all aspects of the constitutional revolution that is now taking place before our eyes, but mainly on the topic that is closest to me as a municipal deputy - local self-government (LSG).

“MSU RIP,” I read somewhere on social networks right after Vladimir Putin made his passage about local self-government in his message.

Appearing in the context of the rejection of the primacy of international law and other changes to the Constitution, Putin's statement frightened many. Five days later we received the full text of the amendment. It is proposed to supplement Article 132 with part 3 of the following content: “3. Local self-government bodies and state authorities are part of the unified system of public authorities in the Russian Federation and interact in order to most effectively solve problems in the interests of the population living in the respective territory. And article 133 should be amended, writing in it that local governments perform public functions and powers of national importance, in cooperation with state authorities.

Let's figure out what it can threaten us and them: de facto and de jure.

As for de facto changes, it's too late to be scared. The foundations laid down in the European Charter of Local Self-Government, suggesting that local governments should have the maximum possible public powers and sufficient financial support for their implementation, have long been thrown into the very hole that local self-government simply has nothing to dig into.

For almost the entirety of Putin's rule, local self-government in Russia has been consistently deprived of the powers and means to exercise them. This led to the complete degradation of LSG.

Many qualified people left the municipalities, leaving mediocrity or those whose main gift is to shift public money into their own pockets. And if, more than expected, Putin now decides to share powers and money, there will be no one to use them for the benefit of the municipal district. Unless we hold fair elections and attract new interested people to LSG.

How they deprived LSU of money. Take, for example, the land tax, the main municipal tax. There is a tax, but there is no land - it was suddenly transferred to the state, which made the municipalities impoverished.

Now, it looks like they want to consolidate this trend in the legal field. Local self-government today has the following legislative framework: the European Charter of Local Self-Government mentioned above, the Constitution of the Russian Federation and 131-FZ “On Local Self-Government”. The charter defines various requirements for the realization of the right of citizens to exercise local self-government. First of all, this is the recognition of the fact that local governments are one of the main foundations of any democratic system, and that they should be endowed with "significant autonomy in relation to the powers, the manner in which they are exercised and the means necessary for the performance of their functions." In the Constitution, in the main chapter 1, it is specified that in Russia there is state and municipal power, and municipal power enjoys independence (Article 12).

In his message and in the amendments, Putin chapter 1, which contains Art. 12, do not touch. The reason is that in order to change it, it is necessary to convene the Constitutional Assembly, and the organizers of the change in the Basic Law categorically do not want to do this (this is long and dangerous, apparently). Nevertheless, a new fundamental concept is introduced into the Constitution - the concept of public authority, which has not yet been used in the Basic Law. In the text of the charter there is only the term "public affairs", but there is no single system there - on the contrary, the autonomy of self-government is emphasized in every possible way.

Putin also mentions the state and municipal authorities as non-identical things and does not seem to suggest making LSG a part of the state vertical. However, the wording of the amendments on a unified system, although not state, but public power, which is carried out in the interaction of two levels of power, provides the ground for even stronger subordination of local self-government to the regions. After all, “interaction” can be such that no one can utter a word, let alone show some kind of independence and initiative. All these formulations, which are contrary to the European Charter, will most likely be detailed in 131-FZ, and it will be easy to fit under them any changes aimed at depriving municipalities of independence in order to increase the “efficiency” of interaction with government agencies.

I am not satisfied with the argument of the opponents of the struggle for the Constitution that, they say, it was not carried out anyway. This is not an argument at all. When it was not fulfilled, we could demand its implementation.

And when the destruction of local self-government is fixed constitutionally, it will be necessary to prove that the Basic Law of the country is illegitimate. And it's much more difficult. Bad practices cannot be legislated.

However, now that the Kremlin has legally built LSG into the vertical of public power, one can begin to present Putin personally for each hole. After all, being at the top of the vertical, he takes responsibility for every city, village and farm in our country. After all, the people who live there will be deprived of the right to independence.

Such decisions are based on the basic principle: we do not trust our people. Initiative is punishable. The boss knows best. It is understandable: people who are too independent will not tolerate the tricks of the irremovable Elbasy.

However, this very narrowly understood "stability" (which is given to us under the guise of change) leads to fatal errors. In a country that stretches across 11 time zones, it is simply impossible to come up with a solution that suits everyone: just as it is impossible to come up with a single heat supply schedule in Murmansk and Sochi or the menu of those very hot lunches in places where lingonberries or grapes are the main source of vitamins.

Diversity, autonomy, local initiative and horizontal connections help individual municipalities and, ultimately, the entire country to develop.

After all, millions of people can do, invent, implement much more interesting and new than one, even the smartest, head in the Kremlin.

And yet - autonomous local self-government allows, in time to identify errors, not to scale them. An example can be taken from the same message where Putin solemnly announced the excellent healthcare of the future - with a strong primary link. True, for some reason he did not recall that it was under him that this primary link was mercilessly destroyed just by transferring local hospitals to the jurisdiction of the regions. Regional authorities, without thinking twice, everywhere began the very “optimization” from which, in fact, we all suffer. And especially residents of small towns, towns and villages. Now, in order to receive even the simplest medical care, they have to travel to the district center, and for at least a little more complex - to the regional or federal center.

As a result, people simply remain without medicine. In the XXI century. And all because of the Kremlin's desire to centralize and control everything as much as possible.

Centralized control and direct administration, depriving people and municipalities of independence never lead to efficiency, prosperity, or development. Moreover, they do not even lead to order. Exactly the opposite: to the very pits on the roads that there is simply no one to repair. Because they are not visible from the Kremlin, and locally there are no funds to buy a shovel and no authority to dig a hole.

But the bad news is that total control, centralization, and, of course, the prolongation of Putin's power are the main goals of the ongoing coup. A coup that is being carried out using deceitful, opaque, manipulative technologies. A coup that will lead to more rights violations and economic impasse. Because a country where there is no freedom of action, independence, on the one hand, and clear, understandable and transparent rules, on the other, eventually comes to devastation and poverty.